The Danish String Quartet made its debut at the Copenhagen Summer Festival in 2002. The group is known for its performances of classical music as well as its own renditions of traditional Nordic folk music. The quartet has also worked with an extensive range of contemporary Scandinavian composers.
Violinists Frederik Øland and Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen and violist Asbjørn Nørgaard first met as children at a Danish music summer camp, where they played both football and music together. They later formed a serious string quartet during their teens while studying at the Royal Academy of Music, Copenhagen. At that time, the ensemble was known as the Young Danish String Quartet. In 2008, the group was joined by Norwegian cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin, prompting a change of name to the Danish String Quartet. The quartet’s primary teacher and mentor was Tim Frederiksen, and they have taken part in master classes with the Tokyo and Emerson String Quartets, Alasdair Tait, Paul Katz, Hugh Maguire, Levon Chilingirian, and Gábor Takács-Nagy. Since 2007, the ensemble has curated its own annual event, the DSQ Festival, in Copenhagen. In 2016, they launched Series of Four, their concert series held in the concert hall of the Royal Danish Academy of Music. In 2013, the quartet began a three-year appointment as members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's CMS Two Program. [1] They were named a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist ensemble for 2013–15, [2] and Musical America named them Ensemble of the Year in 2019. [3] In 2024, the quartet released its third folk-music album, Keel Road. [4]
In 2017, NPR Music named the quartet's second folk music album, Last Leaf, the Best Classical Album of 2017; [12] in 2019, the quartet was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for its album Prism I. [13]
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