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"Our drive has always been the longing to find our own voice in the now, to keep searching, even to fail, to start all over again."
With these words Bernie Mallinger, founder of the radio.string.quartet, describes the initial spark of this extraordinary ensemble.
As a string quartet, the radio.string.quartet, like any other ensemble of this genre, finds its roots in classical music.
However, the r.s.q does not draw its music from the classical repertoire, but from the ocean of its imagination, whose influxes are as diverse as music in general:
They have spent a lifetime on classical music, but just as much on Renaissance music, avant-garde, rock, pop music. Like Franz Schubert and Bela Bartok long before them, the quartet also draws in its own way from folk music. They have intensively studied the fusion music of the 1970s, as well as electronic music of the new millennium and J. S. Bach.
Thus, since the beginning of this journey around the turn of the millennium, all compositions and arrangements for the quartet have been written by the quartet itself, which gives the group a unique selling point among the classical ensembles of this world.
radio.string.quartet is a stylistic multicellular organism, a microorganism in which the individual cells communicate with each other and thus in their entirety produce their own unique living being. A newly discovered cosmos, uniting future with old roots.
But whether it is arrangements or original compositions - it is its unmistakable sound, the "Trademark Sound", which distinguishes the quartet from all similar ensembles. Flattering, demanding, searching, wild, fragile, enthusiastic, dramatic, sweet,
powerful, cinematic.
"A unique sonic phenomenon," The Guardian calls it,
"No quartet in the world sounds like the radio.string.quartet" writes "die Süddeutsche".
Another stylistic element that significantly expands the sound spectrum is the way the four Vienna-based musicians make use of their vocals. Be it a song in the conventional sense, be it as a choir, as an additional color to the instruments or even as the center of the composition.
On stage the audience experiences the quartet as a unity of individuals: connected by their own language, trusting in each other, listening attentively, pursuing a common goal.
Sensitive, energetically charged and always stylistically confident in its unclassifiability.
The fact that the r.s.q. generally does without notes on stage brings the communication with each other as well as with the audience on another, an extended level. It is not surprising that the quartet has been a welcome and often exotic guest at festivals and concert halls of all imaginable genres for years.
Its very special approach as well as the combination of classical performance and contemporary as well as popular cultural influences makes the radio.string.quartet the epitome of the modern and forward-looking string quartet in the 21st century.
radio.string.quartet:
Bernie Mallinger - violin, octavo violin, voice
Sophie Abraham - cello, voice
Cynthia Liao - viola, voice
Igmar Jenner - violin, octavo violin
