Arditti Quartet; Jake Arditti countertenor

Polish composer Andrzej Kwieciński, born in Warsaw in 1984, refined his craft at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, where his teachers included Louis Andriessen and Yannis Kyriakides. Jake Arditti, hailed by Opera Today for the ‘really quite remarkable’ drama of his singing, joins the pioneering quartet led by his father. He steps forward for the world première of Kwieciński’s aptly dramatic “Opulenza!”. The programme’s menu of firsts also includes the UK première of a major new work by Berlin-based composer Isabel Mundry, known for the striking originality of her musical language. Cathy Milliken’s debut as composer at Wigmore Hall was a performance of Bright Ring (performed by Ensemble Modern in 2019); it was this that inspired Irvine Arditti to ask her to write In Speak for the Quartet for its 50th anniversary.