Quatuor Psophos

Eric Lacrouts, violin
Bleuenn Le Maitre, violin
Cécile Grassi, viola
Guillaume Martigne, cello

« Probably the best young string group in Europe », according to the Times of august 2007, the Psophos Quartet is from now on a flagship name of the european musical landscape. First Grand prize of the International String Quartet Contest of Bordeaux (formerly Evian) in 2001, the Psophos Quartet (Greek for « musical event »), from that time on, impelled itself before the intenational
stages.
First French Quartet ever selected by the pretigious New Generation Artists program initiated by the BBC 3 in London, nominated in the "Best Ensemble of the Year" category at the 2005 « Victoires de la Musique », the quartet is performing each year in the greatest music halls such as the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, La Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Wigmore hall in London, the Mozarteum in Salzburg… and is invited in the most prestigious festivals such as latetly, the City of London Festival, les Folles Journées (Nantes, Japan, Lisboa), the Musica festival in Strasbourg, the Festival de l'Epau, the Orlando Festival in Holland or the Festival Radio-France in Montpellier.
The Psophos also love to share the stage with artists like Cédric Tiberghien, Jean-Marc Luisada, Pascal Moraguès, Xavier Phillips, Torleif Thedeen, Dana Ciocarlie, Isabelle Moretti, Nicholas Angelich, the Lindsay Quartet, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon…
During three years, the Psophos Quartet has been in a residence program at the Athénée Louis Jouvet Theatre (Paris 9e) producing itself in its own chamber music concert series. The Quartet hosted the german composer and clarinetist, Jörg Widmann.
The Quartet is also a favored partner of composers such as Nicolas Bacri and Marc Monnet, regularly carrying out their creation of pieces. It recently has the honour to be invited in Cardiff to play the « Ainsi la nuit » Quartet from and in the presence of Henri Dutilleux.
The quartet has recorded many disks, all of them rewarded by musical critical, with a «Choc» from Le Monde de la Musique and a 5/5 from the Diapason for the complete Strings Quartets by Maurice Ohana. Furthermore, a CD dedicated to Webern/Berg/Schoenberg has been released in may 2007 by Zig Zag Territoires and a CD focusing on Bacri quartets for Ar-re-Sé has been
released in october 2007.
A series of concerts also was held in spring 2011 with the musicians of Jazz Dave Liebman and Jean-Marie Machado.
Glad of diversifying its artistic experience, the quartet plays at the Théâtre National de Chaillot during the 2005 spring, within the « Ritournelles », a show from the German Director Dietrich Sagert and participated to the "Solo" show by the choreographer Philippe Decouflé in 2005, 2007 and 2008.
For the past three years, the Quartet has been actively supporting the fight against AIDS in the Indian Ocean (Réunion, Mauritius and Madagascar Islands) by giving concerts whose proceeds are entirely donated to local prevention associations.

Created in 1997 at the Lyon Conservatoire supérieur de musique et de danse, the Psophos Quartet is laureate of the Osaka International Competition and the Vittorio Gui International Competition of Florence and London. Besides many musical encounters through the Proquartet association, the Quartet heightened its experience beneficiating from masters advice with, for instance,György Kurtag, Hatter Bayerle,or Tainer Schmidt. They also have been taught by the Ysaye Quartet in Paris and Walter Levine in Bâle.
Since 2006, the Psophos Quartet is actively supported by Mécénat Musical Société Générale as well as the Paris municipality and the SPEDIDAM for its residency program at the Athénée Theatre (Paris 9e).

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