Quatuor Umlaut

©

The Quatuor Umlaut is a string quartet created in 2020 by violinists Amaryllis Billet and Anna Jalving. Due to their musical backgrounds, the boundaries between written music and improvisation tend to blur for these two musicians. As dedicated performers of centuries of written music, coming from a culture of written scores, they enjoy stepping outside this framework to rediscover what existed before: the improvisation of contemporary music.

With the creation of the Umlaut Quartet, the two musicians wanted to form an ensemble that would explore the string quartet format and venture into the soundscapes of contemporary music, navigating between written compositions and improvisation, new encounters, the creation of new pieces, and reinterpretations of repertoire works. They were joined by Fanny Paccoud (viola) and Caroline Peach (double bass), both passionate adventurers of creative music, active in both contemporary music and early music fields.

The Umlaut Quartet’s first project provided an opportunity to collaborate with Joris Rühl and form a quintet with clarinet to create “Calques,” which Karl Naegelen wrote for them and him in 2020.

Their new project, currently in progress, continues their collaboration with composer Karl Naegelen. With “Les harmonies magnétiques,” the composer explores the unexpected closeness between a formation more than two and a half centuries old (the string quartet) and instruments born from new lutherie (the cordoniums).