Zephyr Quartet breezes through the musical genres jump in Adelaide from contemporary classical to postpunk
Versatility has been a hallmark of the Zephyr Quartet, from contemporary classic to jazz to postpunk to minimatlist music.
Image courtesy Zephyr Quartet
The Zephyr Quartet was honoured in 2019 for defying “genre, style and expectation” during 20 years history of having “fearlessly championed new Australian work” and "sustained contribution to the local, national and international arts scene”.
Zephyr was formed in 1999 when cellist Hilary Kleinig, at Adelaide University’s Elder Conservatorium, asked some friends to play in a string quartet with her. The other members became Belinda Gehlert (violin), Emily Tulloch (violin) and Jason Thomas (viola).
Kleinig set the Zephyr’s versatility. Also playing baroque cello and viola da gamba, she studied at Elder Conservatorium with Niall Brown and Janis Laurs and, in the United Kingdom, with Anna Shuttleworth and Alison Crumb. Besides performance, composition and arranging, education and arts management, Kleinig worked freelance and in orchestras for opera, ballet and musicals plus, as baroque specialist, with chamber ensembles such as Syntony, Adelaide Baroque, Adelaide Chamber Singers and Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. She composed and arranged music for film, dance, theatre and ensembles, taught cello and conducted ensembles.
Zephyr developed and promoted contemporary classical music by commissioning and performing works by living composers. Each quartet member was an experienced composer contributing their own work in concerts and recordings. Zephyr also presented educational concerts for primary and secondary students as a part of Musica Viva in Schools.
The quartet worked with Brink theatre productions, Australian Dance Theatre and interior designer Khai Liew. Spanning many genres, it has played jazz with Andrew Keller, ambient music with Stars of the Lid, postpunk with J.G. Thirwell, ana minimalist with with Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. Zephyr worked with the Takács Quartet, Australian String Quartet and at the National Academy of Music. It performed at festivals including the Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Fringe, Barossa Music Festival and the Glenelg Jazz Festival, with concert series in 2004/2005.
In 2018, the Zephyr Quartet was recognised with the UNESCO international collaboration award at the South Australian music awards. This was followed the next year by the APRA art music award for excellence by an organisation, a national award by the Australian Performing Right Association, the Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) and the Australian Music Centre in Sydney.
In 2019, Zephyr commissioned works for string quartet from female artists at different career stages in different musical fields. These included a work by long-time Zephyr collaborator and one of South Australia’s leading composers Anne Cawrse, a work by its featured emerging artist Iran Sanadzadeh and by some of Adelaide’s most multi-talented music practitioners; Emma Luker, Karen De Nardi and Felicity Freeman.
Also in 2019, Zephyr announced it would take a pause from regular performances without disbanding completely.