Mela Guitar Quartet

Mela Guitar Quartet

The programme will contain new works by RBC composers:

Kat Hunt
Katia Farn
Emma Pascoe
Anqi Qu
Mason Ma
Thomas Culling
Michael Haden

Winners of the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America International Ensemble Competition 2023, the Mela Guitar Quartet is known for its imaginative, engaging programming, ingenious arrangements and commissioning celebrated original works.

And this concert is a perfect example of that, showcasing exciting arrangements – many of them by the Quartet’s own members – of works for full orchestra, from Glinka’s Overture Ruslan and Ludmilla and Ravel’s enchanting Mother Goose Suite, to smaller scale pieces like Debussy’s Arabesques for solo piano. Philip Houghton captures the myriad colours of Australia’s famous gemstone in his three-movement work Opals; and Laura Snowden’s My Clock is Broken! is one of the Mela Guitar Quartet’s own commissions.

Hailed for its “collective technical brilliance and preternatural ensemble making” (Gramophone), the quartet has released four albums: the complete guitar quartets of composer/author Anthony Burgess; the complete guitar chamber works of Stephen Dodgson, both with Naxos; the self-released Pluck, Strum, and Hammer!, and a collection of original arrangements of orchestral and piano works, Overtures & Dances, with spatial audio specialists TRPTK.

Notable performances have included the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room, Kings Place Hall One, St. James’s Church Piccadilly, Barbican Centre’s Milton Court, St. George’s Bristol, Westminster Abbey, Soest Germany, and of course Jimi Hendrix’s bedroom. In 2019 the quartet embarked on an eight concert tour of China, including Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre, Changsha concert hall and Tianjin Grand Theatre.

The quartet recently completed an eight-week tour of America and Canada as part of their GFA winners prize, including a USA premiere performance of Anthony Burgess's Concerto Grosso for four guitars and orchestra with Stanford Philharmonic at the Bing Concert Hall, California.

The quartet formed in 2015 as graduates of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music. They became International Guitar Festival Young Artists 2015/16, then Park Lane Group young artists 2018/19 and Royal Over-Seas League chamber music finalists 2019. The members Michael Butten and Zahrah Hutton joined in 2023.

The quartet is enthusiastically adding to the guitar quartet repertoire through its adventurous arrangements of much-loved orchestral works and their commissions of new music. Laura Snowden My Clock is Broken! (2019), The Emperor’s New Clothes (2023), Michael Finnissy Albion on the Road to Hell (2019), Stephen Goss Venezuela (2019) are all pieces commissioned and premiered by the quartet.

The quartet is sponsored D'addario Strings artists.

"A Stunning Display of Virtuosity… Wizardry… Revelatory music making" Soundboard 2023

“An exalted level of perfection” Naxos

Running time approx. one hour