The Formosa Quartet is the 2006 Tenth London International String Quartet Competition winners. In 2003 the quartet was formed for a tour of Taiwan, the land from which three of the current members hail. The four members are Jasmine Lin, Che-yen Chen, Ayano Ninomiya and Jacob Braun musicians who before forming as the Formosa had already gained established reputations as accomplished solo and chamber players.

The name Formosa means beautiful, this was the name which the Portuguese gave to the island of Taiwan so it was fitting that as the original four were all from Taiwan that they should adopt the name as their own when they formed originally in 2002. The quartet got together to tour their homeland, with Ru Pei on Cello, the two week tour was supposed to be just that but the magic was there and the rest, as they say, is history. The quartet put it better:

"The process of how we evolved into the quartet we are might be likened to
being in a drizzling rain. You get wetter and wetter by imperceptible degrees
and at some point-- though it's hard to say when -- you are drenched. After the
tour we simply took every opportunity of playing together that we could find
and three and a half years later found ourselves with the responsibilities and
challenges of a "real quartet."

2008 sees another busy year for Formosa after their autumn tour of the UK last year with festivals and dates across the United States, details can be found on the quartet's website which you can see The Formosa Quartet.

Labels: classical music, formosa quartet, string quartet

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