Kuss Quartet

String Quartet

Contact

Kathrin Feldmann-Uhl
kf@karstenwitt.com
+49 30 214 594-241

General Management

IN THE MAGAZINE

In the magazine

"Verve, energy, and charm": To kick off of their complete recording of Mozart’s string quintets, supplemented by contemporary musical ‘postcards’ to the composer, the Kuss Quartet has now released the first of three planned albums, in collaboration with violist Muriel Razavi.

NEW RECORDINGS

"Stylistic confidence and gripping expressiveness": The Kuss Quartet receives one of the coveted International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) for its first recording of two works by Ernst Gernot Klussmann.

FRI 02.10.

20:00
Markus Sittikus Saal, Hohenems

SUN 01.11.

19:00
Philharmonie Mercatorhalle Duisburg

FRI 15.01.

19:30
Wiener Konzerthaus

Biography

Jana Kuss, violin
Oliver Wille, violin
William Coleman, viola
Mikayel Hakhnazaryan, violoncello

Chamber music is elevated to great, existential art by the Kuss Quartet.
Radio Bremen Zwei, Klassikwelt, December 2024

The Kuss Quartet has been setting new standards for many years with their sophisticated conceptual programmes. The aim and ideal is to offer both traditional audiences and new listeners unique experiences. Primaria Jana Kuss and second violinist Oliver Wille have been playing side by side for over 30 years – together with their long-standing colleagues William Coleman and Mikayel Hakhnazaryan, they continue to explore, with unceasing curiosity, the enduring imperative of string quartet playing: its ever-present question, “Does it have to be?”

The quartet regularly collaborates with artistic collectives to break across genres and formats in the arts, as seen in concert modules such as “KISS@COCOON” (featuring dancers Yui Kawaguchi and Ruben Reniers, drummer Johannes Fischer, and slam poet Bas Böttcher; supported by the Reload stipend from the Federal Culture Foundation) or the music and dance theatre “Nico and The Navigators,” whose joint Beethoven program in 2022 was produced by ARTE TV as a music film. This successful collaboration will continue in 2025 with Heiner Müller’s play Quartett and Janáček’s string quartets (premiere 12/2025 at Radialsystem Berlin).

Following their successful concept albums "Krise" and "Freizeit," as well as Beethoven's string quartet cycle, the quartet's most recent album - Schubert's Der Tod und das Mädchen, woven with new works written for the Kuss Quartet by Iris ter Schiphorst and Mark Andre - was honored with the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and the Editor's Choice of Gramophone Magazine. In the 2025/26 season, the quartet curates another album project: all six Mozart String Quintets paired with six miniatures by contemporary composers. In November 2025, they will premiere a new work by Johannes Maria Staud in Salzburg as part of the “Dynamik Festival“.

With the help of Niedersachsen/“Music 21” concept funding, over the past ten years the Kuss Quartet has commissioned numerous new works, expanding the string quartet repertoire with compositions by Enno Poppe, Aribert Reimann, Manfred Trojahn, Bruno Mantovani, Iris ter Schiphorst, Johannes Fischer, Mark Andre, Francisco Coll, Sara Glojnarić, and Mauro Montalbetti. Partners in collaboration have included, among others, Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, the Paris Biennale, Wigmore Hall London, and Suntory Hall Tokyo.

The musical partners the Kuss Quartet enjoys collaborating with repeatedly.are Miklós Perényi, Dénes Várjon, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Sarah Maria Sun, Maurice Steger, Johannes Fischer, and many more.

In 2019, the ensemble became the first string quartet from Germany to receive the legendary Paganini Quartet by Stradivarius as a loan from the Nippon Music Foundation. On these instruments, the quartet performed Beethoven’s complete string quartet cycle in June 2019 at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, by invitation. The live recording from that performance appeared in spring 2020 on the British label Rubicon Classics, with support from G. Henle Verlag. “One of the most intriguing complete recordings of the ever astonishing (Beethoven) string quartets, which always seem startlingly new and as if just invented when played by an outstanding ensemble” says the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Early in its career, the quartet was awarded first prizes by the German Music Council and at the Borciani Competition, received a Borletti-Buitoni Award, and was named “Rising Star” of the European Concert Hall Organisation.
In numerous masterclasses, the Kuss Quartet today inspires the next generation, and William Coleman (in Salzburg) and Oliver Wille (in Hanover and Biella/Italy) are professors at European universities. Mikayel Hakhnazaryan teaches chamber music at the Karlsruhe University of Music, Jana Kuss at the Accademia Perosi in Biella.

Season 2025/26

This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions, or additions, unless expressly authorised by the artist management.

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Programmes

Quartetto teatrale

O. di Lasso Prologue from the "Prophetiae Sibyllarum“
W.A. Mozart from the String Quartet in D minor, 1st movement
C. Iannotta "Siciliana miniatur" (string trio)
R. Schumann from Quartet Op. 41/2, Scherzo
A. Berg from "Lyrische Suite", 6th movement
M. Andre "Sieben Stücke für Streichquartett"
L.v. Beethoven Cavatina from Op. 130
E. Poppe "Schmalz" (solo violin)
G. Verdi String Quartet in E minor

1826

L.v. Beethoven String Quartet No. 16 in F major
J.M. Staud new String Quartet
F. Schubert String Quartet in G major, D 887

Anniversary Program “25 years on stage”

L.v. Beethoven from Op. 130, 1st movement and Cavatina
J. Haydn from Op. 20/4, Final movement or
F. Schubert G major Trio
G. Kurtág "Officium breve"
A. Berg one movement from Op. 3
J. Brahms Op. 67, Finale
J. Haydn from Op. 76/5
W.A. Mozart KV 387, Finale

Mozart String Quartets (or Quintets) + contemporary “Postcards to Mozart”

e.g.
Mozart String Quartet in A major, K. 464
String Quartet in D minor, K. 421
String Quartet in C major, K. 465 Dissonance Quartet

+ “Postcards to Mozart”: one- to two-minute pieces (commissioned by the Kuss Quartet) by Manfred Trojahn, Enno Poppe, Rebecca Saunders, Isabel Mundry, Sarah Nemtsov, and Matthew Shlomowitz, to be performed before, after, or between the quartets/quintets

Beethoven Year 2027

L.v. Beethoven String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 18/6
String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95
String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, op. 130 with the Große Fuge op. 133 or
String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131

(Interchange with other Beethoven quartets possible)

References

“The internationally renowned Kuss Quartet was utterly convincing at the Carinthian Summer festival concert (...) with captivating vitality, supreme virtuosity and purity of tone, as well as a rich palette of colors (...).”

Kleine Zeitung, Helmut Christian, 08/07/2026

"The approach is as if everything is re-examined from the ground up. (...) The magic is in the unanimity of accompaniments, the shining tonal blend (beautifully captured) and a wholehearted exploration of tonal colour (...) Manfred Trojahn’s four-minute finale is an internalised song of isolation, played with an intensity and concentration that might befit a Webern miniature."

The Strad, Edward Bhesania, 24/07/2026 - on the CD: Mozart’s String Quintets Nos. 1 & 4 and works by Manfred Trojahn and Matthew Shlomowitz (with Muriel Razavi, viola; Rubicon Classics)

"The members of the Kuss Quartet play Mozart the way they approach everything: meticulously perfect in detail as a matter of course, yet simultaneously with unbridled energy and presence. It doesn’t get any better than this."

SWR Kultur, Eleonore Büning, 26/05/2026 - on the CD: Mozart’s String Quintets Nos. 1 & 4 and works by Manfred Trojahn and Matthew Shlomowitz (with Muriel Razavi, viola; Rubicon Classics)