Jordan Victoria violin
Élise Liu violin
Yung-Hsin Lou Chang viola
Yan Levionnois cello
The Quatuor Hermès is a renowned string quartet named after the Greek messenger god Hermes. Established in 2008 at the CNSMD Conservatoire in Lyon, the ensemble draws its musical inspiration from its role as an intermediary between composers’ texts and the audience’s sensibility. They pursue their musical mission by traveling to the farthest corners of the world, performing at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Forbidden City in Beijing, London’s Wigmore Hall, and major festivals including La Folle Journée (Nantes and Tokyo), Radio France Montpellier, Festival de Pâques and Août Musical in Deauville, La Roque d’Anthéron, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Mantova Chamber Music festival, and the Printemps musical des Alizés in Morocco.
The quartet’s journey began under the guidance of the Ravel Quartet at CNSMD Lyon, and they further developed their skills with key figures such as the Ysaÿe and Artemis Quartets, Eberhard Feltz, and Alfred Brendel, the great inspiration with whom they still work regularly today. Open to all repertoires, Quatuor Hermès has shared the stage with eminent musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma, Gregor Sigl, Pavel Kolesnikov, Kim Kashkashian, Anne Gastinel, and the late Nicholas Angelich, as well as with the Ébène and Auryn quartets. The quartet has achieved notable success in competitions, including the Geneva Competition and the prestigious Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York. They are supported by the Banque Populaire Foundation. From 2012 to 2016, the quartet was in residence at the Chapelle Reine Elisabeth in Brussels. Since 2019, Hermès has been an associate quartet of the Singer-Polignac Foundation in Paris. In terms of discography, their collaboration with the La Dolce Volta label has resulted in recordings of Schumann’s complete string quartets and an album featuring works by Ravel, Debussy, and Dutilleux, both of which have garnered numerous awards from the music press. Their most recent recording of Schubert’s quartets – Rosamunde and Death and the Maiden – won the Choc Classica award and the Trophée Radio Classique in 2022. In 2019, Mirare released the album Le Pari des bretelles, a collaboration with accordionist Félicien Brut and double bassist Édouard Macarez. Each member of the quartet plays on notable instruments: Élise Liu plays a 1730 Carlo Tononi violin on loan from Raymond Piganiol via the Talents & Violon’celles association; Lou Chang plays a viola made for her by Riccardo Bergonzi (Cremona) in 2017; and Yann Levionnois plays a cello made for him by Patrick Robin in 2005.