A German strings quartet that collaborated with Anoushka Shankar and Zubin Mehta, is set to perform at Tao Art gallery
Tilia Quartet, formed in 2005, is celebrating their orchestra Staatskapelle Berlin’s 450th birthday. Pic/Barbara Glücksmann
Named after the Berlin State Opera, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Tilia Quartet is a string quartet from Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra in Germany. Tilia is Latin for the linden tree. The quartet was formed by the then young musicians of the Staatskapelle Berlin Orchestra in 2005, and it currently comprises violinists Eva Römisch and Andreas Jentzsch, cellist Rebekka Markowski and Wolfgang Hinzpeter on the viola. “We have played many great classics as well as unknown works and premiered several works composed for us in over a 100 concerts,” says Hinzpeter, the founder. “We try to perform music by composers with a direct connection to our opera and its 450-year tradition.”
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While their “home” the Berlin State Opera house was being renovated, the quartet played at art galleries, museums and even construction sites. This is their first time in India and so far they only have Mumbai on their agenda. As part of Mumbai gallery weekend, they are performing at the Tao Art Gallery, which is showing works by Rajesh Wankhade and Smita Kinkale. “Our concerts in galleries have always been inspiring: audiences and musicians become more intensely immersed in a space dominated by visual art, they become attuned to an art experience,” says Hinzpeter.
Their visit to India comes just as their parent orchestra celebrates its 450th birthday. “String quartet is the supreme discipline of chamber music,” says Hinzpeter in an email interview. “We are attracted by the challenge: playing in a string quartet requires virtuosity and the highest team discipline and sensitivity; only through the greatest trust in each other can music resound as if from one’s soul.” They will be performing works by Franz Schubert, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, & Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
Besides playing an immersive concert with Anoushka Shankar in 2011, and with the Staatskapelle orchestra under Zubin Mehta, the quartet has not had any contact or experiences with Indian musicians. They admit that they only know India from literature and films but are “curious about culture and spirituality, but also about everyday life in Mumbai”. “We hope to take away impressions of Indian culture and spirituality and to enter into a dialogue with it… in the footsteps of Hermann Hesse to George Harrison,” concludes Hinzpeter, who hopes to bring the entire Berlin Staatskapelle orchestra on an India tour in the future.
WHAT: Tilia-Quartet of Staatskapelle Berlin Orchestra
WHERE: Tao Art Gallery, Worli
WHEN: January 14, 6 PM onwards
PRICE: Rs 10,000
TO BOOK: taoartgallery.com
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