String Quartet in Residence
The Harriet's Trust began sponsoring a String Quartet in Residence programme in 2018. We are extremely grateful to the Trust for enabling a young string quartet to join the festival for a week of coaching with the Benyounes Quartet, Jeremy Young and other festival Artists for four consecutive years.
During the week there are a number of masterclasses that are open to the Supporters of the Festival to watch in order to see the creative and developmental process from the beginning of the week to the culminating concert at St Andrew's Church on Sunday afternoon.
The resident quartet also perform alongside the musicians in the Opening Concert.
Previous recipients
2023 Treske Quartet
2024 Kyan Quartet
2025 Talland Quartet
2026 recipients
Zosia Herlihy-O'Brien - violin
Emily Harrison - violin
Beatrice Slocumbe - viola
Hoda Jahanpour - cello
The Woolf Quartet was founded at the Royal Academy of Music, and are the current Learning and Participation Ensemble Fellows at Wigmore Hall. All four musicians are dedicated to the coming together of new and old. They enjoy performing well-known repertoire side by side with unexplored and contemporary music, and their programming mirrors the eclecticism of their musical identities.
Recent highlights include working with composer Anna Meredith to perform her pieces involving electronics; performances at Deal Music and Arts, 1901 Arts Club, and the Purcell Room at Southbank Centre. Other significant performances include Wigmore Hall’s ‘Music for the Moment’, ‘Chamber Tots’, and ‘For Crying Out Loud’ series which gave them the opportunity to draw on imaginative programming ideas, involving storytelling and audience interaction. The quartet has studied with Jon Thorne, Marc Danel, Lawrence Power, Anthony Marwood and Alex Redington. They are new members of Chamber Studios and of the Nederlandse StrijkKwartet Academie where they recently worked with Simone Gramaglia (Cremona Quartet) and Gerhard Schulz (Alban Berg Quartet).
At the core of the ensemble is a desire to discover and perform works by women which they showcased at this year’s Empower launch, also featuring compositions by their very own violist and cellist. Throughout 2026, Woolf Quartet looks forward to performances across the UK and
Europe, Wigmore Hall and Bradfield Festival.
