BRETON STRING QUARTET

Anne-Marie North, violin I
Antonio Cárdenas, violin II
Iván Martín, viola
John Stokes, cello

The Bretón String Quartet was formed in 2003 when four musicians with extensive experience in various chamber music ensembles and sharing a passion for string quartets and Spanish composers, decided to go beyond the repertoire that is most routinely programmed, to explore this Spanish repertoire from the past to the present day. Since then, the Bretón String Quartet has been invited to the principal halls, festivals and chamber music series in Spain. They have put a strong emphasis on composers such as Ernesto and Rodolfo Halffter, Jesús Guridi, Julián Bautista, Jesús García Leoz, Tomás Bretón, Julián Orbón, Joaquín Turina and Julio Gómez, as well as on modern composers such as Agustín Charles, Alfredo Aracil, Tomás Marco, José Luis Greco, Mario Carro and Cristobal Halffter, and are also dedicated to the standard repertoire, including Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Lalo, Borodin, Debussy, Shostakovich and Szymanowski, and others. The composers Mario Carro, Juanjo Colomer, Alfredo Aracil, José Luis Greco, Víctor Padilla and Gabriel Loidi have dedicated works to the quartet. For Naxos they have also recorded quartets by Rodolfo Halffter (8.572420) and Tomás Bretón (8.572076).