Following on from a number of live appearances on BBC Radio 3 and London concerts in the Wigmore Hall and St James’s Piccadilly, the string quartet that is becoming a hot property in the world of chamber music will be starting a short tour of Scotland with a concert in Inverness Town House on Wednesday 16^th March at 8.00pm at the invitation of Inverness Chamber Music.

The Piatti String Quartet has earned an enviable reputation since coming together only a small handful of years ago.  It has won the 2010 St Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Music Competition, been selected as Park Lane Group Artists and gained awards from the Royal Overseas League and the Tunnell Trust for Young Musicians.

It is the Tunnell Trust award that brings the Piatti String Quartet to Inverness Town House.  This Trust was established as a memorial to John Tunnell, who was well-known to Highland music lovers as the founder and leader of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and his wife Wendy who did so much to encourage young musicians.  The Trust hold auditions every year from groups whose average age must be under 28, after which the various winners are awarded a number of concerts with music clubs across Scotland.

The Piatti Quartet, Charlotte Scott and Michael Trainor (violins), David Wigram (viola) and Jessie Ann Richardson (cello), is based in London where the four members graduated recently from either the Royal Academy of Music or the Royal College of Music.  The Piatti Quartet takes its name from the great nineteenth century cellist, composer and teacher Alfredo Piatti who was born in Italy, travelled and performed throughout Europe, became a good friend of Franz Liszt and settled in London where he became Professor of Cello at the Royal Academy of Music.

The Piatti Quartet has chosen a varied programme for this Town House concert, with none of the works being performed before for Inverness Chamber Music.  It opens with Mozart’s arrangement of five fugues from the Second Book of The Well Tempered Clavier by Bach, followed by the String Quartet in G minor, Op 10 by Debussy.  The second half will feature the beautiful String Quartet No 1 “From my life” by Bedrich Smetana.  Tickets can be obtained from Eden Court Box Office or at the door on the night.

Inverness Chamber Music would like to acknowledge the generous assistance of the Tunnell Trust for Young Musicians, Enterprise Music Scotland, The Highland Council, Inverness Common Good Fund and Eden Court in the promotion of this concert.

Source: James Munro