FLINDERS QUARTET

Elizabeth Sellars (violin), Wilma Smith (violin), Helen Ireland (viola), Zoe Knighton (cello)

FLINDERS QUARTET

Challenging and championing the role of the string quartet in 21st century Australia.

Flinders Quartet (FQ) is instantly recognisable as one of Australia’s most loved chamber music ensembles. They are a quartet for the 21st century and a highly respected force in Australian chamber music.

“… an exemplary performance … It was a joy to hear this finely wrought music so superbly rendered.”
CLASSIC MELBOURNE, August 2022

Since its formation in 2000, FQ has followed a unique path and continues to live up to its motto of “caring for tradition, daring to be different” through its busy schedule of activities.

Vanguards of the Melbourne chamber music scene, FQ initiated its own annual subscription series in 2002. The series has gained momentum each year, and the quartet now enjoys programming and presenting its own season in Victorian venues and around Australia, delivering dynamic and stirring performances which is focussed on contextualising master works of the canon together with new works. They often incorporate other art forms; from inviting audience members to pen Haiku poems to accompany Webern, to intertwining Shakespeare monologues with Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“...clearly a passionate and precise group that give exquisite clarity to each piece performed."
NIGHT WRITES, March 2020 

FQ has a steadfast commitment to the accessibility of the art-form and the growth of Australian chamber music, championing contemporary relevance and art-form regeneration. They offer two composer programs (Ascend and Emerge) working with mid-career and emerging composers selected nationwide, while regularly investing in commissioning and premiering works by both esteemed and emerging Australian composers.

FQ’s 2024 season includes the premieres of new works by Gordon Kerry and Bryony Marks. In their ongoing mission to further the Australian tradition of chamber music, FQ has previously commissioned and premiered works by Peter Sculthorpe, Deborah Cheetham, Ross Edwards, Elena Kats-Chernin, Stuart Greenbaum, Paul Dean, Paul Grabowsky, Ian Munro, Iain Grandage, Andrew Ford, Calvin Bowman, Katy Abbott, Melody Eötvös, Tom Henry, Matt Laing, Julian Yu, Brenda Gifford, Maria Grenfell, Natalie Nicolas, Clare Strong and Ella Macens.

FQ is committed to comprehensively document and promote new works through professional recordings and videos through their own platform, FQ Digital.  Their first commercial CD release, "Reinventions" with Genevieve Lacey, met with critical and popular acclaim and was re-released on the ABC Classic label in 2015, reaching #1 on the ARIA Core Classical album chart. Also on the ABC Classic label is its ARIA-nominated 2011 release, "Fandango" with Karin Schaupp, and 2015 release "Intimate Voices: Sibelius String Quartets". In late 2018, FQ released “The Offering”, a 2-CD set of four Australian works commissioned and/or premiered by the quartet.

FQ enjoys regular airplay on ABC Classic, 3MBS Fine Music Melbourne, Sydney’s Fine Music FM, and has been heard on Finland’s Radio Vega and the UK’s BBC Three. They have recorded the complete works of Margaret Sutherland for string quartet with ABC.

The quartet has a strong presence across regional Victoria, nationally and internationally touring  nationally with guitarist Karin Schaupp for Musica Viva in 2023.

“…easy sense of cohesion and sensitivity…” LIMELIGHT, February 2023

They are in demand at festivals throughout Australia often in association with some of the country’s finest talents, including Slava Grigoryan, Kristian Chong, Ian Munro, Paul Dean, Karin Schaupp, Genevieve Lacey and Jayson Gillham. International engagements have taken FQ to the UK, Singapore, Canada, plus Sweden and Finland, where they were invited to perform the complete string quartets by Sibelius.

Regional touring is integral to FQ’s activity and their commitment to the engaging with communities through chamber music is evidenced through long standing relationships in the Yarra Ranges, Shepparton, Mildura, Bendigo, Bairnsdale, Warragul as well as Northern Tasmania (Stanley, Scottsdale and Launceston) and regional NSW (Armidale and Coffs Harbour).

Further highlighting their steadfast commitment to quality music making in regional areas, the “Flinders Quartet Regional String Quartet in Residence” is currently held by the Castlemaine Chamber Players, FQ supports this ensemble in delivering high quality music to its community.

Through a partnership with Resonance String Orchestra based in Woodend and Castlemaine, Flinders Quartet supports the development and rehearsal process of the ensemble and each year, a string quartet is selected from the orchestra to further develop instrumental and chamber music skills through regular coaching and rehearsals with FQ members. 

In 2018, FQ was appointed Artistic Patrons of John Noble’s Itet program, an initiative that reaches student and amateur musicians in regional Victorian through mentoring and side-by-side performances. Through this program, they work regularly with 7 ensembles based all around Victoria.

In 2019 FQ launched an arts and wellbeing residency program in collaboration with Footscray High School (FHS) with students responding in their chosen art form to the string quartets of Shostakovich. Based on its extraordinary success, FQ has taken its work to Macrobertson Girls High School where visual communication students created backdrops and posters based on Russian Constructivism and Bauhaus to Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8.

Building on its 2006 Limelight Award and 2007 Melbourne Prize for Music nomination, FQ was nominated for a 2007 ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) award for its performance of Gillian Whitehead’s "Bright Forms Return" in collaboration with new music ensemble Halcyon. In 2010, Flinders was again nominated for the Melbourne Prize for Music, and in 2011 received an ARIA nomination for its CD release with Karin Schaupp (guitar), "Fandango".