Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra (QPO) musicians will perform two string quartets and a clarinet quintet today, at 7:30pm at the Katara Cultural Village opera house. This is the second of 10 concerts this season in the Philharmonic’s new chamber music series. Franz Joseph Haydn’s Sunrise String Quartet opens the programme, followed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. Felix Mendelssohn’s Second String Quartet will complete the evening. Haydn invented the string quartet form along with the sonata and the symphony. His Sunrise Quartet earned its name through its opening, rising theme. A mature work, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet added the smooth texture of a clarinet to four strings. Romanticism is in full flower in Mendelssohn’s Second Quartet, even though the composer was still a teenager. Each of the musicians appearing today has achieved a hat-trick of experience in chamber, solo, and orchestral music. Austrian Rony Moser, the Philharmonic’s principal clarinet, has played with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Wiener Concert-Verein. The Doha String Quartet is composed of violinists Nina Heidenreich and Dmitri Torchinsky, violist Andrea Mereutza and cellist Christoph Schmitz. Heidenreich, the principal second violin in the Qatar Philharmonic, made her solo debut at the age of nine in Paris. She gained international attention in winning the 1997 Città di Moncalieri and 1998 Città di Stresa competitions. Before joining the Philharmonic she was concertmaster of the Orchestra Metropolitana de Lisboa in Portugal. Violinist Dmitri Torchinsky’s father was the leader of an orchestra and his mother was a flute teacher. After study in London and Vienna and several competition victories he played with many orchestras in the UK and Austria. Along with his work at the Philharmonic he runs the ASD chamber music series. In 1996 sub-principal viola Andrea Mereutza won second prize at the German national viola competition, Jugend musiziert. Following studies in Berlin she played in the Deutsche Opera Berlin, as principal viola at Opera Bremen and as principal viola of the Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin before joining the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. Cellist Christoph Schmitz, originally a Berliner, is not only a musician. He has also delighted the Philharmonic’s children’s audience with his engaging commentaries at school concerts.

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