PERSBERICHT Amsterdam, 2 oktober 2023
The Kersjes Fund, one of the Netherlands' largest private incentive funds for music, awards the 2023 Kersjes Prize to the Animato Quartet. The award consists of a cash prize of 50,000 euros. The award ceremony will take place Monday evening, November 27, in De Duif, Amsterdam.
The Animato Quartet, winner of the 2023 Kersjes Prize, is widely regarded as the most promising young string quartet of the Netherlands. In their concerts at home and abroad, the four musicians - violinists Inga Våga Gaustad (1998), Tim Brackman (1993), violist Elisa Karen Tavenier (1996) and cellist Pieter de Koe (1994) - combine classical works with contemporary compositions. The quartet won prizes at various international competitions including the Trondheim’s International Chamber Music Competition and International Joseph Joachim Chamber Music Competition. They also participated in the Verbier Festival Academy and received the Christine and David Anderson Career Development Prize from the Banff International String Quartet Competition.
On The Kersjes Fund’s motivation for selecting the Quartet: "We have been following the Animato for years and have been impressed by the enormous strides the musicians have made as a quartet. The four players, each maintaining and deploying their individual expression, have developed as a quartet a layered and intense playing with a broad palette of colors. With their vibrant and glowing renditions of music from different periods, they know how to enchant the audience."
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The Kersjes Fund, one of the Netherlands' largest private incentive funds for music, awards the 2023 Kersjes Prize to the Animato Quartet. The award consists of a cash prize of 50,000 euros. The award ceremony will take place Monday evening, November 27, in De Duif, Amsterdam.
The Kersjes Fund, founded in 1994 by conductor Anton Kersjes and his wife Margreet van de Groenekan, spends some 350,000 euros annually on scholarships and prizes for young talent and to support special projects and original initiatives. The string quartet enjoys special attention in this regard; among others, Dudok Quartet Amsterdam, Ruysdael Quartet, Ragazze Quartet and Matangi received the Kersjes Prize. Since 2022, the stimulus fund has partially shifted its course. The annual presentation of prizes, scholarships and stipends to violinists, ensembles and conductors - an important pillar of Dutch musical life - will be continued. For project support, the fund is pursuing a new policy, focusing on the development of promising ideas. Original and stimulating music projects are eligible for substantial financial support. The aim is to nurture challenging, viable but vulnerable ideas at their source and give them the opportunity to develop. Within the new policy, the fund supports projects by New European Ensemble, Diamanda Dramm and Fie Schouten, among others.
Het Animato Kwartet ontving de Kersjesprijs 2023 op 27 november 2023 in de Duif in Amsterdam.
Video: Gijs Besseling, camera & montage Kasper Koudenburg, geluid interview: Annette den Heijer productie: 24classics.com