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23 QUATUOR HERMÈS Sincerity, refinement, and sensibility are probably the terms that best describe the Hermès Quartet. Those qualities, noticed at an early stage by Miguel da Silva and the Ravel and Ysaÿe quartets, were developed and confirmed with the guidance of Eberhard Feltz, the Artemis Quartet, and members of the Alban Berg Quartet. In 2009, just a year after its formation at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon, the quartet won First Prize at the Lyon International Chamber Music Competition, inaddition to theAudience Prize and the SACEMPrize, thanks notably to its interpretation of Henri Dutilleux’s Quartet Ainsi la nuit . The magic touch was in evidence again in 2011, when it was awarded First Prize at the prestigious Geneva International Competition. In the same year the group received prizes from the Académie Maurice Ravel and the Fondation Charles Oulmont. In November 2012, to cap what was already a series of outstanding achievements, came the supreme accolade of the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York, where the four French musicians, competing with more than 300 candidates from all over the world, won a First Prize that opened the doors of the foremost American concert halls. The sensibility of its youthful musicians and the high standards they set themselves have enabled the Hermès Quartet in a few short years to acquire an exceptional degree of maturity and embark on a highly promising career. Its engagements now include tours of the United States (autumn 2013 and spring 2015), China (June 2014), Japan, and Egypt, and of course appearances at many leading festivals and venues in France and elsewhere in Europe (Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium), among them the Lockenhaus Festival, the Festival de l’Orangerie de Sceaux, the Festival de Radio France et de Montpellier, the Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo, the Crescendo Festival in Berlin, and the Auditorium du Louvre and Cité de la musique in Paris. This busy schedule provides the members with the ideal opportunity to share their passion for the brilliant and deeply human repertoire of the string quartet.