The Zaïde Quartet is an award-winning French ensemble, founded in 2009 when the original players – Charlotte Juillard and Pauline Fritsch, violins, Sarah Chenaf viola, and cellist Juliette Salmona – were students at the Paris Conservatoire. Young, dynamic and clearly going places, the quartet began winning prizes at international competitions as early as 2010, and has performed at prestigious venues across Europe, including London’s Wigmore Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. After Pauline Fritsch retired from the group in 2014 her place was taken by violinist Leslie Boulin-Raulet, and it's with Leslie that we speak ahead of the quartet's first Irish tour...

As it happens, we catch up with her just as the group is in the middle of editing its latest recording – the complete Haydn Op. 50 quartets – due out in November on the new digital label NoMadMusic. The group’s first recording, of Janacek and Martinu (also with NoMadMusic), came out last year. She’s clearly thrilled about this collaboration: “it’s a really cool young label, really upbeat – they have baroque, they have jazz, they have classical and we are one of their special groups…”

The quartet is also very excited to be touring Ireland, on a nine-concert tour through the country in collaboration with Music Network. Their programme brings together modern and classical styles, with music by Shostakovich, Mozart and Bartok, along with the ‘Celebration Quartet’ (2005) by Irish composer Philip Martin. For Leslie, the Shostakovich (his Quartet No. 7) is a really good piece to open with – “we are really keen on mixing, bringing together contemporary and classical music, and the Shostakovich is quite an upbeat, pop quartet, easy to get into, it has everything… a perfect little piece, really good to bring to the audience. Then we have the beautiful G major Mozart (K.387)… it mixes so well with Shostakovich and Bartok, such a great link between the two, a contrast for the ears and the emotions and at the same time it’s really rhythmical, a good match with the Shostakovich. And then we have Bartok, his Quartet No. 5, the form is really interesting and the piece is so exhilarating, rhythmical, lots of folk material, Hungarian-style, with amazing harmonies as well. The second and fourth movements are like little nocturnes, really calm and beautiful.” Including a piece by Philip Martin also means a lot: “we’re really excited to include it, it links well to all the music and it’s nice for us as French musicians to play Irish music on this tour.”

Leslie also talks more generally about the quartet – “it’s always what I wanted to do… we want to play everywhere, it’s our main occupation, we love it, it’s a passion!” Not a project-based ensemble, they are able to dedicate all their time to working together, practicing every day. Looking ahead, they have lots of ideas: “first of all, in repertoire, our goal is to have all the Beethoven quartets, all the Bartok quartets… to have as much repertoire as we can, the Mozarts and the Haydns, obviously – that’s why we dedicated our second album to the whole Op. 50 of Haydn, because that’s how we started playing together, and Haydn is so incredible, so joyful, he has such amazing humour, and at the same time it’s so good for us as a discipline, for our technique, musicality… The classical repertoire is really our main focus, but also we try to introduce new works each year.”

The quartet is one of the ECHO Rising Stars artists for 2015-16, which will have them perform in major venues across Europe. As part of this they also collaborate with a composer and premiere a new piece commissioned especially for them. Working with the young Italian composer Francesca Verunelli on this new work has been a great experience, and the first performance follows shortly in November. In June of next year the quartet also plans to create another new work, this time with composer Marco Momi: “we want to play new works, to be involved in the creation process – developing with, and helping new composers… for us it’s very important, as well as growing our classical repertoire.”

And the name? The original Zaïde was an early opera that Mozart left tantalisingly unfinished. As Leslie puts it “we thought it was a wonderful symbol to have – the name ‘Zaïde’ is quite an exotic name, which we really like. It sounds beautiful, and coming from Mozart, one of our favourite composers – and also the story behind it, we really liked the slave Zaïde, who escapes… it’s an adventure, you know, that we want to be in and be part of, and to write!”

The Zaïde Quartet tours Ireland 8 – 17 October, presented by Music Network.

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