Sunday 25 February 17 00 €25

The Lacerda String Quartet was founded in 1990 and is one of the leading string quartets of Portugal. Besides standard repertoire, with a special emphasis on Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the Lacerda dedicates much of its attention to great and unjustly neglected masterpieces from the Portuguese repertoire. Their first CD includes Viana da Mota’s String Quartet in G major (1895, first world recording), Freitas Branco’s String Quartet (1911, first world recording by a Portuguese string quartet) and Francisco de Lacerda’s Miniatures for String Trio (1917, also a world première recording). A second CD entitled” Maelstrom”, with music by the internationally acclaimed Portuguese composer João Pedro Oliveira, includes Labirinto (2001), for string quartet and tape. The Lacerda has premiered works by Moritz Eggert, Alan Ridout, Arnold Trowel, Frederico de Freitas, Eugénio Rodrigues, Eurico Carrapatoso and Alexandre Delgado. They have performed in many of the major festivals and venues in Portugal, as well as in Spain, France, Italy and England. 2008 saw the Lacerda “crossing borders”, participating in an innovative project with the ever popular Portuguese light-music singer Jorge Palma in the Belem Cultural Centre in Lisbon. The Lacerda also took part in a historic and unique project during 2009 that involved performing all the string quartets by Joseph “Papa” Haydn to celebrate the bicentenary of his life. These concerts took place in Portugal, Madeira and the Azores and were broadcast by Portuguese national radio (Antena 2). The Lacerda released a CD with three of Haydn´s most emblematic quartets from the Op 1, Op 20 and Op 77 sets to commemorate this historic occasion. In August 2011 there followed an invitation for a series of concerts in various venues in China where the Lacerda performed works by Freitas Branco, Carrapatoso, Haydn, Mozart and Schulhoff. In the summer of 2012 the Lacerda performed in Guimarães (European Cultural Capital for 2012). Recently during "Dias da Música" in the Belém Cultural Centre in Lisbon they performed a programme of Haydn, Melo and Beethoven. By far the most ambitious project of the Lacerda Quartet is the long-term objective to have recorded all 69 of Joseph Haydn´s String quartets by 2032 which will be the tercentenary of the birth of this great composer.The members of the quartet are Alexander Stewart (first violin), Regina Aires (second violin), Paul Wakabaya i (viola) and Luis André Ferreira (cello).