Winner of the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Chamber Music in 2007 and the Chamber Music section of the BBC Music Magazine Awards in April 2009, the Dante Quartet is known for its imaginative programming and the emotional intensity of its performances.

The group was founded in 1995 at the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, Cornwall, and chose the name of Dante to reflect the idea of a great and challenging journey.

The Dante Quartet plays at major concert halls, music societies and festivals throughout the UK, and in the past two years has appeared at the Aldeburgh, Bath, Cheltenham, Spitalfields, Hay, Brighton, Presteigne and City of London Festivals as well as at Wigmore Hall and King’s Place in London. The quartet broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 and has also performed in France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Switzerland, Poland and Finland.

In the summer of 2008 the Dante Quartet made its Hyperion recording début with a disc of Franck and Fauré quartets. This has attracted unanimous critical acclaim, has received the Diapason d’Or award in France and been shortlisted in the 2009 BBC Music Magazine Awards. Previous recordings include Janáček’s string quartets (Meridian), song cycles by Gurney and Vaughan Williams with tenor Andrew Kennedy and Edmund Rubbra’s complete quartets, shortlisted for the 2001 Gramophone awards.