1-2-3 Engegård Quartet! Norwegian ensemble celebrates 20 years at its own festival in Oslo

The Engegård Quartet has been playing together for 20 years and this year its 1-2-3 Festival in Norway celebrates its 10th anniversary. For this double celebration, the quartet is presenting 1-2-3 Engegård Quartet! at Sentralen in Oslo from 14 to 16 November 2025. The festival features some of the most important works from the quartet’s repertoire in the last 20 years along with important collaborators. I chatted to members of the quartet back in 2020, see my interview.

The festival begins with Grieg and Schumann’s Piano Quintet with a new work by Nils Økland, and they will be joined by former members of the quartet for a performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet, whilst actress Gjertrud Jynge joins them for an evening based on Jon Fosse’s Septology combining powerful texts with music from Bach to Kurtag to Norwegian folk. And the weekend ends with a concert combining Ibsen with Beethoven’s String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132. The quartet will also be celebrating the completion of their recordings of all of Mozart’s 26 quartets on Lawo Classics. Full detail of the festival from the website.

In the UK, the quartet will be at the Roman River Festival in Essex in September [further details], opening the festival’s 25th anniversary season with a concert of Grieg, Mozart and Norwegian folk music. And the quartet is also in Hereford the same month with Grieg, Boyce and Beethoven [    ]