Arditti Quartet Postpone 50th Anniversary Concerts Due to Injury

Cellist Lucas Fels was forced to withdraw from the concerts after breaking his arm

The Arditti Quartet has opted to postpone its 50th-anniversary concerts — which were scheduled to take place as part of the music festival Wien Modern on November 1, 2, and 4 — on account of the quartet's cellist Lucas Fels unfortunately breaking an arm.

The group will preserve the planned programs in their entirety, and instead perform the concerts during 2025, with the dates to be confirmed in due course. These concerts include works by Schoenberg, Prins, Sciarrino, and Xenakis, among others.

Cellist Lucas Fels joined the Arditti Quartet in 2006, and his discography with the ensemble includes the complete string quartets of Lachenmann, Dusapin, Harvey, Birtwistle, Gerhard, Ferneyhough, and Casablancas. He has premiered a number of new works, including cello concerti by Wolfgang Rihm (Styx und Lethe, 1998), Walter Zimmermann (Subrisio Saltat, 2003), Sebastian Claren (After Blinky Palermo 2002), Mathias Spahlinger (Lamento, protokoll 2013) and others.

Fels has also lectured at the renowned Darmstadt Summer Music Courses for 20 years, and has taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt am Main for the last 11 years.

"We very much regret that the cellist of the Arditti Quartet broke his arm a few days before the start of the planned major anniversary project ARDITTI 50 (1st and 2nd November 2024 Wiener Konzerthaus, 4th and 5th November 2024 Musikverein) and wish him a speedy recovery," wrote Wien Modern in a statement. "In consideration of the quartet's intensive preparations and rehearsals for this project, which have been ongoing for months, we have jointly decided to maintain the integrity of the program and the quartet and not to look for short-term replacements for parts of the program."

"We are working to reschedule all four concerts unchanged to 2025; the new dates will be announced as soon as possible. Festival passes and individual tickets will remain valid. We thank you very much for your understanding and look forward to welcoming you to one or more of the remaining 140 events in the 37th edition of the festival."