AIGHETTA QUARTETT François SZONYI – Alexandre DEL FA – Philippe LOLI – Olivier FAUTRAT

    The Aïghetta Quartet was formed in 1979 in Monte Carlo. It was first heard in public in 1980, but its career as an international ensemble may be said to have been launched with its performance of the Concerto Andaluz by Joaquin Rodrigo, with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Monte Carlo in 1982. Tours of France, England, Italy, Hungary and German Federal Republic have followed, as well as numerous television and radio broadcasts. The appeal has not been one of a sheer novelty -the song of a four-headed bird- but rather of the recognition of a new and compelling sound”. Since then the Aïghetta Quartet has recorded several CDs among which a homage to Bill Evans with the Jazz guitarist John McLaughlin (Time Remembered), the works for guitar quartet by Anthony Burgess and an album dedicated to their own compositions: “Acoustic world”. Encouraged to its debuts by artists such as Henryk Szeryng, György Cziffra and Riccardo Chailly, Aïghetta Quartet arouses for more than thirty years the enthusiasm of the most varied publics, those the most prestigious concert halls: La Fenice in Venice, the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona, the Salle Garnier in Monte Carlo, the National Gallery in Budapest, the Gasteig and the Musikhochschule in Münich, the Brücknerhaus in Linz, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Théatre Antique in Arles the Théatre Dejaset in Paris, the Mirabell Castle in Salzburg, the Teatro Ghione in Rome, etc…, as well as the regular returns to the alternative theaters in Stuttgart, Bonn, Luzertn etc. They have been the guest of numerous  festivals in France, Italy, Belgium, Spain and at festivals that are dedicated to guitar music such as Andres Segovia International Festival in Linares, Barcelone Guitar Festival, the Festival Guitarras de hoy in Murcia/Spain, the International Festival in Paris/France, the Bath International Guitar Festival/England, the Printemps de la guitare de Charleroi/Belgium, those from Rieti, l’Aquila, Rome/Italy, the Gitarrentage from Neuötting and the International Guitar Symposium from Iserlohn, Gitarrenfestival from Hersbruck /Germany. They have obtained the “Golden Soafa 87” for the best musical show of the year in Dorfen in Germany. The quartet has worked with musicians and composers coming from very different worlds (numerous first productions, among them two concerti with orchestra); they have moved on to jazz music field in a way where improvisation and arrangements are closely associated; more recently they produced their own compositions, as a kind of synthesis of new musical trends. This eclecticism, allied to a research for the excellence, makes of these four “world musicians” one of the most innovative whole current scene both in soloist and with orchestra.