Australian String Quartet

The Australian String Quartet (ASQ) is a chamber music group founded in 1985 and based at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. It delivers an artistic program of performances, workshops, commissions, digital content and education projects across Australia and abroad. The quartet performs on a matched set of string instruments hand crafted by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini between c.1743-1784 in Italy. The earliest of these is a cello (c. 1743), and a violin (1748-49), both made in Piacenza. The viola (1783) and another violin (1784) were made in Turin. The ASQ regularly tours Australia and the world. The current members are Dale Barltrop (violin), Francesca Hiew (violin), Christopher Cartlidge (viola) and Michael Dahlenburg (cello). Guest artists have included pianists Angela Hewitt, Andrea Lam and Piers Lane, mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, clarinettists Michael Collins and Ashley Smith, violist Brett Dean and cellist Pieter Wispelwey.