Nevermind Quartet

Nevermind Quartet

Anna Besson flute

Louis Creac’h violin

Robin Pharo viola da gamba

Jean Rondeau harpsichord

The love and passion of ancient repertoire and music from all horizons led Anna Besson, Louis Creac’h, Robin Pharo and Jean Rondeau to create the group Nevermind in 2013. Together they share and present works they love to a wider and more varied audience, transcending the quartet repertoire (flute, violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord) of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The concerts given by the quartet have only reinforced their conviction: the friendship that emerges from these four musicians appears through passion and a real pleasure of playing, all carried by a striking complicity and devout collaboration.

In 2014, Nevermind won the third prize and special festival prize at the Van Wassenaer Competition in Utrecht. The ensemble have performed throughout France and Europe, as well as in the United States at the Boston Early Music Festival and at the esteemed Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. Furthermore the quartet have travelled to and performed in Canada with Pro Musica, in Iceland and Russia, namely in Saint Petersburg and in the Sverdlovsk Philharmonic Concert Hall of Yekaterinburg.

Nevermind have had the opportunity to perform at prestigious venues such as the Auditorium of the Louvre, the Salle Cortot and the Theater des Champs-Elysees in Paris. Touring is key to Nevermind’s success and they have had the pleasure of also performing at the Hong Kong City Hall, Warsaw Philharmonie, Hamburg Philharmonic, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, Concertgebouw Bruges, BOZAR in Brussels, LSO St Lukes and at the Barbican in London.

Festivals include the Rheingau Musik Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Festival of Saintes, the Terpsichore festival, Musiq3 festival in Belgium, Gstaad Menuhin festival in Switzerland and the Gregynog festival in Wales.

In 2016, Alpha / Outhere released Nevermind’s first album, Conversations, which focuses and aims to give an insight on French quartets from the first half of the 18th century and highlights almost completely unknown pieces composed by two virtuoso violinists: Jean-Baptiste Quentin and Louis-Gabriel Guillemain. The second album of the group, Quatuors Parisiens, was dedicated to the work of Georg-Philipp Telemann and was released in 2017 on the Alpha / Outhere label.

Nevermind was in residence at the Abbaye aux Dames de Saintes during the 2016 and 2017 seasons for the preparation of several programmes and their second album.

Highlights of the 2019/20 season included a successful and fruitful tour in Australia to cities such as Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Newcastle and Brisbane and other performances at the Bel-Air clavier festival and in Hong Kong at the Premiere Performances series.

The quartet, who continue to demonstrate their virtuosity, delved into the world of contemporary music for the first time in 2019 and launched works for violin, flute, viola da gamba and harpsichord entitled La Harpe de David, especially composed for Nevermind by Philippe Hersant. The work was premiered at the International Festival of Sacred and Baroque Music of Froville, the Saintes Festival, the La Chaise-Dieu Festival and the Sinfonia Festival in Périgord.

Nevermind continue to pursue their successful recording projects with their anticipated third album, currently being recorded for the Alpha / Outhere label, with works devoted to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s quartets.