Pavel Haas Quartet

The Pavel Haas Quartet is a Czech string quartet which was founded in 2002. Their first album with the second quartets of Haas and Janáček won the 2007 Gramophone Award for Chamber music. Their recording of the Dvořák String Quartets Op. 106 & 96 won the Gramophone Awards' most coveted "Recording of the Year" prize in 2011.

The first violinist Veronika Jarůšková was inspired to form the quartet after she attended concerts by the Škampa Quartet in which her husband Peter Jarůšek was the cellist. She recruited other players in Prague, some of whom had studied with the same teachers. Initially the group consisted of, Kateřina Gemrotová (second violin), Pavel Nikl (violist), and Lukáš Polák (cellist). After its formation Polák decided to leave because of incompatibility, so the two quartets ended up exchanging cellists, with Jarůškova's husband joining the Haas Quartet and Polák joining the Škampa Quartet. Later the second violinist (Gemrotová) was replaced by Marie Fuxová, who in September 2008 was replaced by Eva Karová, the youngest member in the group at 25 years of age (in November 2009); the oldest was only 33. In July 2012, Karová was herself replaced by Marek Zwiebel as second violinist.

The quartet is named after the Czech composer Pavel Haas, who was deported from Czechoslovakia in 1941, initially imprisoned at the work camp Terezin, and finally died at Auschwitz.

The group won the 2004 "Vittorio E. Rimbotti" award in Florence. Their recording contract with Supraphon came from winning the Prague Spring Competition in May 2005, and has resulted in four CDs. The group got another early boost by winning First Place at the Premio Paolo Borciani competition in Italy in June 2005. The group also received a Special Ensemble Scholarship from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust in 2010.

Besides their first CD, which won the 2007 Gramophone Award as the best chamber music recording of the year, their second CD with the first Janáček quartet and the first and third quartets of Haas was selected by the Gramophone as an "Editor's Choice". Their third Supraphon disc with the two Prokofiev quartets (No. 1 in B minor, Op. 50, and No. 2 in F major, Op. 92) and his Sonata for Two Violins, Op. 56, was also selected by Gramophone as an "Editor's Choice.” Wikipedia