Exactly 40 years ago, on 7 March 1974, the Arditti Quartet performed their first concert ever at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Since then, they have given more than 2000 concerts and premièred a significant amount of works from the UE catalogue, the latest of which were Wolfgang Rihm’s Epilog at the Eclat Festival and Luke Bedford’s Wonderful Four-Headed Nightingale at Wien Modern.

Irvine Arditti, the founder of the quartet, has talked to Karsten Witt about the Arditti Quartet’s long and rich history. You can find the full conversation here.

The first major event to celebrate the Quartet’s anniversary takes place on 26 April at the Barbican.

Congratulations from all of us!