“They are four excellent musicians located in Murcia, from where they project their unquestionable talent. They have accomplished technique and a first rate musical sense... The full-house audience was enthusiastic, and the quartet offered works by Haydn and Mozart as good as any other famous foreign quartet may have presented” (Tomás Marco in El Mundo newspaper, March 20th, 2007).
During 2009-2010 season the Saravasti String Quartet will offer performances in Valencia (Palau of Music), Valladolid (Calderón Theater), Vitoria (CajaVital Foundation), Alicante (Royal Casino) and Murcia (“Víctor Villegas” Auditorium). In the first half of 2010 will present in world premiere a compact disc with the string quartets numbers 2 and 4 of the murcian composer Mario Medina for the Documentation Musical Centre of the General File Region of Murcia.
In 2008 the Saravasti String Quartet offered concerts in Madrid (Juan March Foundation), Seville (Cajasol Foundation), Toledo (Sefardita Museum) or Cartagena (Roman Theatre Museum), and especially noteworthy success at the Cervantes Institute Auditorium in Tokyo, at the inauguration official acts of this site, sponsored by the Spanish Embassy in Japan and Cervantes Institute of that city.
During the previous year commemorated the tenth anniversary of their first performance with the edition of the compact disc "Saravasti performs Mozart", recorded for the Ibersonic label. In that year Saravasti offered a concert at the Carthage Acropolium in Tunisia sponsored by the Spanish Embassy and Cervantes Institute of that city. They also performed two concerts for the prestigious Juan March Foundation of Madrid within the cycle “To my dear friend Haydn”, both broadcast live for all Spain by Classical Radio Station of Spain (RNE Clásica), in which they received resounding success.
In 2006 they performed at the Cervantes Institute in New York City, within the concert cycle “Spain in Chamber Music”. In that same year, because of the Mozart Year celebrations, they presented the cycle “About Mozart”, consisting of four concerts dedicated to his works. They also performed several concerts dedicated exclusively to this repertoire in different venues, among which stands the Velázquez Hall at the Prado National Museum of Madrid, in front of the celebrated “Las Meninas”.
The Saravasti String Quartet works under the tutelage of members of the Tokyo String Quartet, considered internationally as the most prestigious in the world. The Saravasti members have studied in Spain, France, Belgium and Austria with prestigious teachers such as Kikuei Ikeda, Clive Greensmith, Mikhail Kopelman, Ruben Aharonian, Liviu Stanese, John Harding, Jaap Schröder and Igor Sulyga, members of the Tokyo, Borodin, Kopelman, Enesco, Via Nova, Orlando, Smithson and Moscow Quartets.
In 2001 they premiered the string quartet “Prometeo” by Manuel Seco de Arpe and “Folkloric Suite about themes of Murcia” by Benito Lauret at the Queen Sofía National Museum of Madrid, in 2004 the string quartet “Minotauro's New View” by Miguel Franco (edited in CD by the RTVE-Música label) at the Almudí Palace in Murcia, in 2005 “Millennium's Dream” by Antonio Narejos at the Calderón Theatre of Valladolid, and in 2008 the string quartet nº4 by Mario Medina in Murcia, “Six Scenic Interludes for string quartet” by José Zárate at the Toledo International Music Festival and Suite “Blood Wedding” by Salvador Martínez at the Cervantes Institute of Tokyo (Japan).
Among other institutions for which they have performed stand the National Institute for the Performing Arts (INAEM), National Centre for Contemporary Music (CDMC), Cajasol-El Monte Foundation for Juventudes Musicales of Seville, CajaNavarra of Pamplona, CajaVital of Vitoria, Cristóbal Gabarrón of Valladolid and Cajamurcia, L'Imagier en Musique (Capestang, France), Mediterranean International Music Festival and Classics in Summer of the Madrid Community, Santa María de la Arrixaca Royal Academy of Arts, Philharmonic Society of Lugo, Caja Mediterráneo (CAM), or the Universities of Sevilla, Granada, Murcia and Cartagena. The quartet was selected by the National Institute for the Youth (INJUVE) in 1997 and by the National Association of Artists and Music Players of Spain (AIE) in 2004 to perform concert tours around Spain. Every year they perform the “Christmas Concert” at the Murcia “Víctor Villegas” Auditorium, broadcast by Classical Radio Station of Spain (RNE Clásica), in which it is traditional the performance of the Mendelssohn String Octet with prestigious soloists such as violinists Miguel Pérez-Espejo, Felipe Rodríguez and Hsin-Lin Tsai, violist Alan Kovacs, and cellist Peter Zay.
