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Stories   >   Danish String Quartet return to PUC with Haydn, Purcell, Shostakovich, and Scandinavian folk music / TOWN TOPICS

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Danish String Quartet return to PUC with Haydn, Purcell, Shostakovich, and Scandinavian folk music / TOWN TOPICS

Posted: October 25, 2023

Danish String Quartet  write…..As a string quartet, we find ourselves at the core of the classical music world. On a daily basis, we delve into works by great masters such as Beethoven and Mozart, but we also play the occasional folk music gig.        

Over the years we have been fortunate to study in many different places, in masterclasses with renowned teachers and have had opportunities to perform in major concert halls across the world.

We have participated in competitions and made some recordings as well. If you want to know more about all this conventional stuff, check out the ‘press‘ page on our site, where you can download a substantial PDF full of information and wisdom.

Here’s a simpler story of the quartet:  We are three Danes and one Norwegian cellist, making this a truly Scandinavian endeavor. Being relatively bearded, we are often compared to the Vikings. However, we are only pillaging the English coastline occasionally.

The three of us, the Danes, met very early in our lives in the Danish countryside at a summer camp for enthusiastic amateur musicians. Not yet teenagers, we were the youngest players, so we hung out all the time playing football and chamber music together.

We were regular Danish kids with an above average interest in classical chamber music. Quickly we became best friends and we still are. In 2001, professor Tim Frederiksen of The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen got in touch with us and started coaching us on a regular basis, drilling us for hours in early Haydn quartets.

All of the sudden, at the ages of 15 and 16, we were a serious string quartet, practicing intonation and stuff. It all happened so fast that none of us seemed to notice the transition.

Time passed and we grew up. Grew beards. None of us have any memory of our lives without the string quartet.
In 2008 Norwegian cellist Fredrik joined in. He looked like a character from Game of Thrones, and we thought he was a perfect match. During his free time, Fredrik can be found fixing or sailing his OE32 sailboat somewhere in Scandinavia.

?Other interests of the group include vintage cars, cooking, gaming, reading, playing, talking, scuba diving, playing tennis, and being dads of babies and toddlers. Yes, playing string quartets is our job, and yes it is hard work, but we mostly do it for pleasure, like we always did.

Music is a way to hang out with friends, and we hope we can continue to hang out for many, many years.
Rune, Asbjørn, Fredrik and Frederik

BACK IN TOWN: The Danish String Quartet, a Princeton University Concerts fan favorite, returns to Richardson Auditorium November 2.

TOWN TOPICS writes…..The Danish String Quartet will return to Princeton University Concerts (PUC) on Thursday, November 2 at 7:30 p.m. with a performance at Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall on the Princeton University campus. The quartet will bring a program of Joseph Haydn, Henry Purcell, Dmitri Shostakovich, and arrangements of Scandinavian folk music.

“Our audience adores the Danish String Quartet,” said PUC Director Marna Seltzer. “This will be their third appearance on our series, bringing their uncanny ability to play both folk tunes and the likes of Shostakovich with sophistication, warmth, and infectious energy. Violinist Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen of the Danish String Quartet just joined us on our Performances Up Close series as the leader of the Nordic band Dreamers’ Circus. Those concerts re-affirmed the broad range and virtuosity at the core of his work and the work of the musicians with whom he surrounds himself.”

The quartet is rounded out by Tonsgaard Sørensen’s fellow violinist Frederik Øland, violist Asbjørn Nørgaard, and cellist Fredrik Sjölin.

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