The SonArt String Quartet was founded in 1998 by accomplished musicians with extensive solo careers: Nikolaj Minčev, Iva Miletić, Lucian Moraru, and Joël Wöpke. They have played a vital role in enriching Romania’s vibrant musical scene. The quartet regularly performs at prominent events, including the Bookfest International Book Fair in Bucharest and the reopening of the National Museum of Art of Romania. They are also frequent performers at the prestigious Romanian Athenaeum concert hall.
On this occasion, they will be joined by Italian pianist Epifanio Comis, who studied with Agatella Catania, Lazar Berman, and Pietro Rattalino. As a soloist, he has performed across Europe, Asia, Russia, and the USA, with appearances at renowned venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the State Discotheque in Rome, and the Symphony Hall in Osaka. He is also an active pedagogue, leading masterclasses at distinguished music institutions and festivals around the world.
The concert will feature chamber music by two key composers of the genre. In 1842, Robert Schumann made a groundbreaking contribution to Romantic music with his Piano Quintet—characterised by thematic development, textural variety, and a symphonic scope that helped establish the quintet as a central form in Romantic chamber music. Nearly half a century later, Antonín Dvořák composed his second Piano Quintet (1887), a work that radiates a sense of ease, incorporating folk elements, melodic and rhythmic vitality, and a well-balanced formal structure.
