Ragazze Quartet

After Antonín Dvořák was appointed the director of the National Conservatory in New York in 1892, he tried to give his new piece an ‘American’ twist. Many young composers were attracted to the idea of an American classical tradition. 

One of them was Florence Price, the first female African-American composer to find recognition in the US. In 1935, she wrote a magnificent string quartet that is finally taking its deserved place on the concert stages. In addition to the Dvořák lineage, American music also had its own avant- garde, and here as well women rose to the challenge. More specifically, the string quartet by Ruth Crawford Seeger is one of the best and most original quartets to come out of America in the 1930s.

The Ragazze Quartet from the Netherlands is one of the Low Countries’ most adventurous string quartets. Whether they’re playing well-known classics, works by neglected composers (m/f/x) or new talent, they always completely surrender to refreshing and broadening the string-quartet culture and making it even more exciting. Limitations do not scare them off but actually seem to attract them, which makes for a perpetual flow of revelatory concerts and CDs. In their latest CD But Not My Soul, the ‘ragazze’ (Italian for ‘girls’) present their modest rediscovery of America, especially a more female America!