Press
'**** At a time when new string quartets are two a penny, the Doric Quartet has cleared its first hurdles with impressive ease... Haydn served this week as launching-pad for its New Town Concert in Edinburgh….The finesse of the performance, in which nothing was over-emphasised, spoke for itself. The soft-grained detail of the first movement showed immediately why these players are going places.'
The Herald Queen's Hall Edinburgh March 2009
'Making their York debut, last year’s winners of the Japan Osaka Competition, the Doric’s showed that they are today’s finest UK Quartet at a time when we are inundated with brilliant young ensembles….Technically they are superb, their account of Janacék's highly charged, passionate and deeply emotional Intimate Letters capturing to perfection the enormous mood swings and massive dynamic range. They have the ability to play modern works with such deep understanding, yet can perform Haydn with a period awareness that is becoming all too rare. It is a wonderfully balanced ensemble with an uncommonly fine cello in John Myerscough, and a leader, Alex Redington, whose intonation is spotlessly clean. You only had to listen to their extraordinarily quiet ending to the slow movement in Beethoven's Harp Quartet to know they are not afraid of taking risks.'
Yorkshire Post, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, February 2009
'The Doric String Quartet perform Haydn's music with spirit, wit and sophistication at Wigmore Hall. Rating: *****
Haydn and the Doric are a perfect match. This is an ensemble, young but mature of insight, that plays Haydn’s music with spirit, illuminating its blend of wit and sophistication, grace and vivacity, cunning and seemingly effortless spontaneity.... The Doric’s performances, without exaggeration but with just the right degree of elucidation, revealed the music’s extraordinary originality and the way that Haydn can explore the potential of his thematic material so thoroughly yet so artlessly.... Unequivocally, these were performances of terrific panache and perception, seeming to get right under the skin of Haydn’s creative genius.'
The Sunday Telegraph Wigmore Hall 18 January 2009
'The players moved together with absolute unanimity, like a great sea anemone, and this was reflected in the unity of their sound. There was great wisdom and no self-indulgence to the slow movement of the Beethoven, as well as a creativity of sound, with restatements of the same phrase coloured differently each time…Earlier in the programme, the players had given a magical performance of Haydn's op.76 No.1...I found their performances the most inventive, engaging, moving and beautiful'.
The Strad – Borciani Competition, October 2008
‘Powerful, passionate and precise…The Doric String Quartet triumphed in their German debut’
Nordkurier – Festspiele Mecklenburgh-Vorpommern, July 2008
‘It was more than just perfect interaction, which formed a foundation for the greatest function of deliberate artistic ambition. It is not often that one can experience dynamic contrast so uncompromisingly sharp as one could in Beethoven’s first born quartet (F op.18/1), rarely can one encounter this work with such dynamic spirit and directness as if taken by surprise…This was an impressive evening.’
Ostsee-Zeitung – Festspiele Mecklenburgh-Vorpommern, July 2008
‘Performing Haydn's op. 76 no. 1, the English Doric Quartet were distinguished by a rare grace, an abandon to the time of the soul, and a magnificent ability to maintain the "pianissimo".’
La Stampa – Borciani Competition, July 2008