Frank de Groot

Dutch violinist; founding member and first violin of the DoelenKwartet, which grew out of the DoelenEnsemble in 1993 and has played in an unchanged line-up since 2007; focus on the string quartet literature of the modern era and the present, with regular commissions. The DoelenKwartet is based in Rotterdam, where together with the DoelenEnsemble it has built up a series of new music in the Concert- en Congresgebouw De Doelen since the early 1990s; since 2007 these concerts have belonged to the international series “Red Sofa”. Alongside Frank de Groot play Maartje Kraan (violin), Karin Dolman (viola) and Hans Woudenberg (cello). The repertoire comprises around 250 works, predominantly contemporary ones and works from the early 20th century; the work with Hans Abrahamsen, John Adams, Henri Dutilleux, Steve Reich, Wolfgang Rihm and Peter-Jan Wagemans left its mark. In October 2015 the quartet made its debut with John Adams’ “Absolute Jest” with the Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest. The recordings released by Cybele received the ECHO Klassik 2009 and 2010, the LEOPOLD media prize 2009/10 and the Editor’s Choice Award of Gramophone Magazine. Six albums connect him with Cybele as first violin of the DoelenKwartet. In the Portrait Peter-Jan Wagemans (2001) the quartet is still heard in its earlier line-up with Laurens van Vliet; there followed Wolfgang Rihm’s String Quartets Nos. 1, 4, 8 and 5 (2006) as well as the label’s word-and-music productions: the audiobooks after Urs Faes (2006) and Arnold Schönberg’s Die Prinzessin (2008) and the conversation volumes on Karl Amadeus Hartmann (2009) and Hans Erich Apostel (2010) from the Edition Künstler im Gespräch.