Berit Cardas

Berit Cardas, born in Norway in 1969, started playing the violin at the age of 8. She studied at the Music Conservatory in Oslo, at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany, and at the University of Minnesota, USA.

Berit Cardas plays both the violin and the viola and frequently appears as a soloist on both instruments. In her quartet, the Vertavo String Quartet she has changed back and forth between 1st, 2nd violin and now the viola. Founded in 1984, the group is still going strong, with an interesting and steady career, including regular visits to exciting festivals and great venues as the Wigmore Hall, London; Carnegie Hall, NY and the Amsterdam Concertgebow.  For their 35th anniversary, they curated a complete cycle of Haydn string quartets together with friends and colleagues in one 28-hour-long marathon event. As a member of Vertavo Quartet she has won the Grieg Prize, the Nordic Chamber Music Competition and the 1st prize, the Audience Prize and the Radio listeners Prize at the 2nd Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in 1995.

Berit Cardas is part of the artistic board of the Oslo Quartet Series and she plans and runs two twinned chamber music festivals in Norway. She is an active chamber music teacher and the workshops she does combining her background in theater improvisation and chamber music have great popularity. Berit Cardas is also a sought-after leader of chamber orchestras with her original and uncompromising view on music making.

Orchestral conducting is the latest addition to Cardas’ career, she has studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music and at the University in Stavanger and been to several master classes around Europe. Latest season engagements as a conductor include the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Arctic Philharmonic and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. This season she has conducted Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, The Royal Norwegian Navy Band and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

Berit Cardas plays a Lorenzo Storioni violin (1770) gererously lent to her by the Norwegian Dextra Musica foundation.

Programme

Mon
20.7.

Maurice Ravel (1875—1937):

Allegro from Sonata for violin and cello (1920–22)

Wed
22.7.

George Kontogiorgos (1945):

Adagio from String Quartet No. 1 'Unicorn' (2006)

Wed
22.7.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875—1912):

Nonet in F minor, Op. 2 (1894)

Wed
22.7.

Ernő Dohnányi (1877—1960):

Marcia: Allegro from Serenade in C, Op. 10 for string trio (1902)

Wed
22.7.

Gabriela Ortiz (1964):

La Calaca from Altar de Muertos for string quartet (1997)

Thu
23.7.

Asta Hyvärinen (1963):

Shingle-Twinkle for two violas (2005/2024)

Fri
24.7.

Erwín Schulhoff (1894—1942):

Allergo furioso from Concertino for flute, viola and double bass (1925)

Sat
25.7.