World premieres of quartets by composers such as Birtwistle, Cage, Carter, Ferneyhough, Gubaidulina, Kagel, Kurtag, Lachenmann, Ligeti, Nancarrow, Rihm, Stockhausen and Xenakis show the wide range of music in the Arditti Quartet’s repertoire. The exploration of new musical territories always takes place in close cooperation with the respective composers which time and again leads to enormously fruitful mutual benefits. In addition to his phenomenal career as first violinist of the Arditti Quartet, Irvine Arditti continues to excel as an extraordinary soloist. Born in London in 1953, Irvine Arditti began his studies at the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 16. He joined the London Symphony Orchestra in 1976 and after two years, at the age of 25, became its Co-Concert Master. He left the orchestra in 1980 in order to devote more time to the Arditti Quartet, which he had formed while still a student. “Nothing is impossible if you spend enough time working it out.” This attitude of Irvine Arditti has served as the foundation for the extraordinary achievements of the Quartet in the past 31 years in which they have recorded over 130 CDs and have been awarded many prizes, including several Deutsche Schallplatten prizes.