The Netherlands String Quartet Academy, NSKA, celebrates its ten year anniversary in 2011. Because of this special occasion the Ragazze Quartet was invited to make a recording for the jubilee CD release of the academy. The recording took place in Schiedam where we worked on string quartets by Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) and Bela Bartók (1881-1945). This program is a good example of what the quartet writes on their own website: ‘We explore a wide variety of repertoire, from Baroque to contemporary, including the core quartet works.‘
The quartet made an interesting choice by using baroque bows for the Boccherini Quartet (g major opus 32, no 5) and modern bows for Bartóks first string quartet. The result is a very vivid and exciting atmosphere for Boccherini and a truly colorful Bartok interpretation.
[flv:http://www.daanvanaalst.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Ragazze-Video-Blog.mov http://www.daanvanaalst.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/5444768074_dbb6962103_b.jpg 500 300]This promotional video shows the Ragazze Quartet and the recording team with producer Wilhelm Hellweg and me as balance engineer during the recording .
For more information about the Ragazze Quartet please visit their website. Read more about the Netherlands String Quartet Academy and its recent projects on the website.
Project info:
Recording venue: Westvest Church, Schiedam
Recording producer: Wilhelm Hellweg
Recording Engineer and editing: Daan van Aalst