RUSQUARTET is formed by XENIA GAMARIS, first violin, ANNA YANCHISHINA, second violin, KSENIA ZHULEVA, viola and PETER KARETNIKOV, cello.

RUSQUARTET was founded in 2001 at the Academic College of Music of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory under the tutelage of Galina Soboleva, great cellist of the Prokofiev String Quartet. Members of the RUSQUARTET are DMA graduates from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory where they have been students of the Professor Dmitry Shebalin (Borodin String Quartet).

Throughout the years, musicians of the RUSQUARTET were given master classes by the greatest Russian and foreign performers. Henk Guittart (Holland, Schoenberg Quartet) became one of their main mentors. The quartet was given master classes by such outstanding musicians as Valentin Berlinsky (Borodin Quartet), Mikhail Kopelman (Borodin Quartet, Kopelman Quartet), Igor Naidin (Borodin Quartet), Gerhard Schulz (Alban Berg Quartet), Peter Schuhmayer (Artis Quartet), Joel Smirnoff (Juilliard String Quartet), Philip Setzer (Emerson String Quartet), Don Weilerstein(Cleveland Quartet), Gabor Takacs (Takacs String Quartet), Barry Shiffman (St. Lawrence String Quartet), Mark Steinberg (Brentano String Quartet), and Denis Brott (Orford String Quartet).

RUSQUARTET has been taking a master classes in Banff Centre (Canada), Academie Musicale de Villecroze (France), Stanford University (USA) and MISQA in McGill University (Montreal, Canada).

During the years of studies, RUSQUARTET achieved considerable success:
In the first year of its quartet life RUSQUARTET participated in Beethoven Festival in Moscow, where it was awarded the diploma. In September 2006, the quartet won the first prize at the competition held in Germany (Rheinsberg) in the honor of Shostakovich’s 100th anniversary. In 2007, the quartet was selected as one of the top ten string quartets invited to the prestigious Banff International String Quartet Competition (Canada), and since then it has become a permanent participant of the music festivals in Canada including Banff Summer Arts Festival. In October 2008, the quartet won the 8th Shostakovich International String Quartet Competition in Moscow. In November 2008, the quartet was awarded a diploma as a Semi-Finalist at the Tromp International Music Competition in the Netherlands. In 2008, the International Union of Musicians and the Chamber Music Association awarded RUSQUARTET with the Gaydamovich grant “For Achievements in Chamber Ensemble Performance”.

The musicians are actively promoting contemporary composers and rarely performed compositions. The quartet’s programs include Andrei Eshpai’s «Concordia discordance», two string quartets by Mikhail Marutaev, a string quintet for two violins, two violas, and a cello by Alexander Lokshin, as well as compositions byGeorges Onslow, Lex van Delden (the Netherlands), Kelly-Marie Murphy (Canada), Steve Martland (Great Britain), and Jonathan Dove (Great Britain), Olli Mustonen (Finland).

On the 13th of September, 2010, RUSQUARTET performed a world premiere of Samuel Feinberg’s two-part string quartet. This outstanding Soviet pianist and teacher became famous for his piano compositions. Among them – three concerts for the piano with orchestra, 12 piano sonatas, suites, fantasies, four preludes, as well as a few vocal cycles. The score for the quartet has been found recently and the organizers of the festival commissioned RUSQUARTET to perform it. The concert took place at the Rachmaninov Hall of the Moscow Conservatory under the framework of the Festival devoted to Samuel Feinberg’s 120th anniversary.

The Dutch composer Louis Andriessen highly acclaimed the professionalism of the team, when RUSQUARTET performed all of his five quartets in March 2009 at the Vancouver festival dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the composer.

RUSQUARTET performs in the best Moscow concert halls, including the Great, the Small, and the Rachmaninov Halls of the Moscow State Conservatoire. In 2015 the ensemble has performed at the prestigious Musikverein in Vienna. RUSQUARTET took part in the concert in honor of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, who gave its performance the highest praises. The ensemble is the participant of 21-st Sant-Nazaire CONSONANCES international chamber music festival (France), Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Music festival.

The repertoire of the quartet is extensive and diverse, it embraces music of different styles and epochs. RUSQUARTET performs lecture-concerts in schools and orphanages for the children who study music professionally, as well as the children who simply like music. Such programs help get a priceless experience in performing chamber music when the main goal of the performers is to interest children in music – a major performing art – by making it accessible and exciting.

Op zondag 25 november 2018 was het RUSQUARTET voor het eerst te beluisteren in onze concertreeks.

Het RUSQUARTET kunt u horen en zien op zondag 3 mei 2020 in de kerk van Mook. Om 11 uur ’s morgens kunt u ze overigens  ook beluisteren in het Concertgebouw te Amsterdam.