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world premieres by composers from all over Eu-
rope, the result of a collaboration between the San
Fedele Foundation and the Pharos International
Contemporary Music Festival. Dante Alighieri –
Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral
philosopher, and political thinker – is best known
for the monumental epic poem
La commedia
, later
named
La divina commedia
. The
Divine Com-
edy
, one of the great works of medieval literature,
is a profound Christian vision of man’s temporal
and eternal destiny. On its most personal level, it
draws on the poet’s own experience of exile from
his native city of Florence; on its most comprehen-
sive level, it may be read as an allegory, a journey
through hell, purgatory and paradise.
Quartetto Prometeo won the 50
th
Prague Spring
International Music Competition in May 1998, as
well as the competition’s Special Bärenreiter prize
for Best Performance of Mozart’s Quartet K.590
(according to the original score), the City of Prague
prize as best quartet and the Pro Harmonia Mundi
prize. Quartetto Prometeo was designated resident
group at the Britten Pears Academy (1998) in Al-
deburgh and was awarded the Thomastik Infeld
prize at the Internationale SommerAkademie Prag-
Wien-Budapest 1999 for outstanding performance
of a chamber music work; the Quartet also won
the second prize at the Concours International de
Quatuors in Bordeaux. In 2000, the Quartetto Pro-
meteo was awarded the Special Bärenreiter Prize
at the renowned ARD Münich Competition. Since
its inception, the Quartet has received important
scholarships from the Scuola di Musica of Fiesole
and from theAccademia Chigiana of Siena, where
in August 1995 it won the prestigious diploma of
honour. Beginning in 2013 through 2015, Quar-
tetto Prometeo will be quartet-in-residence at the
prestigiousAccademia Filarmonica Romana.
Quartetto Prometeo’s brilliant international career
includes performances at some of the most impor-
tant music festivals and venues in theworld, includ-
ing Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Aldeburgh
Festival, Wexford Festival, Prague Spring Festival,
Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Roma, Théâtre in
Bordeaux,AuditoriumMusée d’Orsay in Paris and
tours in SouthAmerica and in the Netherlands.
One of the characteristics of Quartetto Prometeo is
the research they devote to putting together their
repertoire, which includes the new musical ex-
pressions of our time. Their close collaboration
with the acclaimed composer Salvatore Sciarrino
inspired him to dedicate two pieces to the Quar-
tet,
Esercizi di trestili
and his latest,
Quartet No.8
,
which was commissioned by the Società del Quar-
tetto Milan, MaerzMusik Festival Berlin, Ultima
Festival Oslo and Aldeburgh Festival;
Quartet
No. 8
was recently recorded, along with his latest
works for string quartet. Since performing the Ital-
ian premiere of Târ, Quartetto Prometeo continues
its collaboration with Ivan Fedele, and in 2011
they premiered
Moiroloja Kai Erotikafor
string
quartet and voice, which was commissioned by
Accademia Filarmonica Romana for the Quartet.
The Quartetto Prometeo performance included 12
world premieres: Vito Zuraj (Slovenia), Manuel
Rodriguez (Spain), Antonin Servière (France),
Carlo Ciceri (Italy), FrancoVenturini (Italy),Aurél-
ien Dumont (France), Mirtru Escalona (Venezuela/
France), Antonio Covello (Italy), Roberto Vetrano
(Italy), Vittorio Montalti (Italy) Evis Sammoutis
(Cyprus) and Pasquale Corrado (Italy).
Kairos String Quartet
Wolfgang Bender / violin
Stefan Häussler / violin
Simone Heilgendorff / viola
Claudius vonWrochem / cello
Berlin’s Kairos Quartet was founded in 1996 and
debuted at the Darmstadt International Holiday
Courses. The Quartet promotes new music from
the second half of the 20
th
century to the present,
thus landmark compositions since the 1950s and
world premieres are at the heart of the Quartet’s
activity, which also includes samples of the West-
ern musical tradition, music from non-Western cul-
tures, and compositions created with other media
(electronics, video and speech).
Kairos (Caerus - Καιρός) is the god of the auspicious
moment in Ancient Greek mythology. He was rec-
ognised as the youngest son of Zeus by the poet Ion
of Chios (490 - 421 B.C.). Depicted by the sculptor
Lysippos as a youth with winged shoes and a long