Besides his famous symphonies, Beethoven composed 16 string quartets and one great fugue for string players. On two evenings in May the established Kuss Quartet from Berlin will play Beethoven's string quartets at The Shoe Factory. The Kuss Quartet with Jana Kuss (violin), Oliver Wille (violin), William Coleman (viola) and Mikayel Hakhnazaryan (cello) ranks amongst the world’s most renowned ensembles and performs in Europe, the USA, South America and Japan.
The Kuss Quartet won numerous international awards at the Bubenreuth Competition (1997), Karl-Klingler Competition (Berlin, 1998) and at the International String Quartet Competition (Banff, Canada, 2001).
In June 2002, the quartet was awarded the first prize in the Premio Paolo Borchian Competition in Reggio Emilia/Italy and was a "Rising Star" of the European Concert Hall Organization. As a result, the Rising Star Program has taken them from New York’s Carnegie Hall to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, from the Vienna Concert Hall to the Philharmonie in Cologne, from Athens Concert Hall to Birmingham Symphony Hall and from London’s Wigmore Hall to the Philharmonie in Berlin, their home city. The Kuss Quartet was supported by Borletti-Buitoni Trust.
