Violin I Naomi Warburton
Violin II Sydney Grace Mariano
Viola Wanshu Qiu
Cello Simon Guémy
Established in 2020, the award-winning Kyan Quartet brings together four exceptional musicians from the United Kingdom, the United States, China, and France.
The quartet enjoys a busy and vibrant career, having performed across Europe and Asia. Recent highlights include winning the Richmond Concert Society String Ensemble Award at the 2024 Royal Over-Seas League competition, and undertaking a three-week tour throughout China. As upcoming Tunnell Trust award holders, the quartet will tour across Scotland in February 2025. The Kyans are looking forward to their residency at this year’s South Downs Summer Music International Festival. They have held residencies with the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme, the European String Teachers Association, and the Borromeo Music Festival. Recent collaborations include guitar quintets with Ahmed Dickinson at Wigmore Hall, and Mendelssohn’s famed Octet with the Carducci Quartet.
In the past year, the quartet have won places on prestigious courses, including Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland’s 68th International Chamber Music Campus, and Chamber Studio’s inaugural Hans Keller Forum. Through these they have received coaching from Heime Müller, John Myerscough, Richard Ireland, the Kuss Quartet, Alasdair Beatson and Péter Nagy. The quartet continues to be mentored by Ying Xue of the Doric Quartet. They have also been coached by members of the Carducci, Chilingirian, Heath, London Haydn, and Piatti Quartets. The quartet are proud members of Le Dimore del Quartetto.
Widening musical participation and access is central to the quartet’s artistic mission. They are Live Music Now artists, sharing their love of participatory music-making in care homes and SEND schools. The quartet are looking forward to giving masterclasses and working with young composers at the Junior Royal Academy of Music. As the 2022/23 fellows of the Open Academy/Wigmore Hall Learning Programme, they appeared regularly on the Wigmore Hall stage and in community settings, sharing music with families, young children, and those living with dementia. A particular highlight was leading workshops across six primary schools in Tower Hamlets, in partnership with Spitalfields Music. The Kyans are excited to return to Wigmore this October to perform a low stimulus concert as part of the organisation’s Imagine Series.
The Kyan Quartet pride themselves on championing new music. They have given Wigmore premieres of commissioned pieces by Florence Anna Maunders and Zhenyan Li, and performed Symphony for String Quartet and Forest by Jacob Fitzgerald at the 2022 Timber Festival, featuring 200 school children singing alongside the quartet. The Kyans collaborated with Cem Güven to record his 2023 quartet Atmospheric Manipulations, and will feature on Ben Nobuto’s upcoming debut album.
Meet the Kyans
Naomi Warburton
Violin I
Sydney Mariano
Violin II
Wanshu Qiu
Viola
Simon Guémy
Cello
© Kyan Quartet 2024
All artist photos by Ray Palo and Jessica Hu.