The Banbha Quartet is one of several fine new Irish quartets promoted by the National String Quartet Foundation and establishing an exciting reputation amongst audiences throughout the country. Their opening concert in our spring quartet series starts with music by Grażyna Bacewicz, a leading figure in Polish musical life during and after the Second World War. A successful violinist, her compositions include seven violin concertos and seven string quartets, of which No.4 is among the best known. Jane O’Leary’s forever begin was written in 2020 as ‘a sort of fanfare for strings – conveying a sense of excitement, anticipation, hope and optimism – a sense of new beginnings’. Following on in the same vein, Dvořák’s popular and irrepressible ‘American’ quartet celebrates the composer’s new-found enjoyment of American folk music.