FLINDERS QUARTET
Elizabeth Sellars (violin), Wilma Smith (violin), Helen Ireland (viola), Zoe Knighton (cello)
FLINDERS QUARTET
Over 25 years, Flinders Quartet (FQ) has commissioned 75 new works for string quartet, reached #1 on the ARIA Core Classical chart, been nominated for numerous awards including ARIA Best Classical Album, toured four continents, mentored over 100 ensembles, and won the hearts of audiences as a vanguard ensemble of artistic integrity.
“A transcendent performance…” Alan Holley, classikON, 2024
Renowned for bringing a 21st-century lens to the masterworks of the string quartet canon, FQ has created groundbreaking interdisciplinary collaborations: “Behind Closed Doors” with Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre (a theatrical play exploring a quartet’s preparation of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden for a Wigmore Hall debut); “Shostakovich” with Richard Piper (a 75 minute Shostakovich quartet cycle inspired by Wendy Lesser’s book “Silenced Voices”); “Puck’s Dream” with Iain Graindage, Richard Piper, and Chris Moore (who played both viola and Puck); “Bartok My Father” with Richard Piper (exploring Peter Bartok’s relationship with his father through Bartok’s fifth string quartet); and most recently “The Mendelssohns” (unearthing the sibling relationship between Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn) with dramaturg Richard Piper and composer Bryony Marks. These and many other innovative projects have helped open the world of the string quartet to new and diverse audiences.
“Flinders Quartet demonstrated remarkable talent, and the unique narrative threaded throughout elevated an already special show to a unique, unforgettable experience.” Kieran Welch, Limelight, 2024
FQ’s generosity is at the core of its artistic practice. Since 2016, the quartet’s composer development programs - now known as Ascend and Emerge - have supported over 50 emerging and mid-career Australian composers. Anne Cawrse, Ella Macens, Matthew Laing and Lee Bradshaw are just some of the composers who had their career catapulted forward as a result of participation in the program. In 2025, FQ partners with Hush Foundation in its Emerge program to create new string quartets for healing and wellbeing and to be used in situ in the operation and hospital environments.
“I feel like I have gained a refreshed perspective into what contemporary ensemble activity can be like in Australia. Not that I believe that every group is as wholesome as FQ, but it was quite reassuring to let go of the piece and have trust that the ensemble would continue to personalise their performance in a way that I found respectful, positive and purposeful.” 2024 Ascend participant
FQ believes every string player should experience how playing in a quartet enhances musical understanding. As ensemble-in-residence at Resonance String Orchestra and Artistic Patrons of John Noble’s Itet program, FQ regularly performs side-by-side with regional musicians, mentors emerging quartets, and supports the professional development of regional string teachers.
Access to great chamber music is central to FQ’s values with open rehearsals and a free community concert held annually in the Library at the Dock (Docklands). FQ knows that teenagers are often primed to be receptive to the intimacy and intensity of a string quartet (especially in the works of Shostakovich) and since 2019 the quartet has collaborated with public secondary schools: Footscray High School, University High, Ringwood Secondary College, MacRobertson Girls High School, and the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School; using the string quartet to inspire student engagement in music, as well as in media, dance, visual arts, and visual communication.
“…easy sense of cohesion and sensitivity…”
“Flinders Quartet work so beautifully together making high class choices in their interpretations. This was an outstanding concert.”
“... exciting and effervescent ... had the audience sitting up in their seats paying close attention to the impeccable intonation, rhythmic unity and open communication of the four players...”
“... enjoyable and unpretentious night of high-class music. The program was a reminder of the Flinders Quartet’s unique and refreshing ability to present an exceptional standard of classical music in a way that feels warm and human.”
“... Flinders Quartet displays a tight ensemble with exemplary intonation ... We are indeed fortunate to have resident in Australia a quartet of this very high calibre.”
“The performances of the Flinders Quartet were simply exquisite - the expectations were high, but they were anyhow surpassed. To mention only two separate items: the big five-movement quartet ‘Voces Intimae’ sounded deep and expressive in our 5th century stone church, the Korpo Church, and eg. the final,long-strechted crescendo of the finale was played with commendable aplomb. The separate Adagio in D minor, Js 12, was rendered with lyrical intensity and atmosphere, showing the high professional culture of the ensemble.”
“I could hardly praise the playing of the Flinders Quartet more highly: accurate and perceptive with excellent timing and coordination.”