Vera has just come from a rehearsal. Today she has a concert with the Cuarteto Casals, one of the most prestigious string quartets in the world, which celebrates its 25th birthday this year.
She tells me that, for her, chamber music is the best music. Playing as a soloist in an orchestra does not fulfill her as much as being part of a quartet. We talk about the importance of the communion between the performer and the audience in concerts, "it's like you doing portraits, you always need someone on the other side", and about the little consideration that classical music has in Spain, if we compare it with other countries like, for example, Germany.
Today they will play Brahms and Haydn, "the father of chamber music". Good concert!
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Born in Madrid, Vera Martínez Mehner studied at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía and at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. She completed her studies in Germany with a postgraduate degree in chamber music as a member of the Casals Quartet under the tutelage of the Alban Berg Quartet.
She won important prizes such as the First Prize and Special Prize for the best classical interpretation at the Kloster Schöntal International Competition (1995) and the Second Prize at the Henry Wieniawsky International Violin Competition in Poland (1997). As a member of the Casals Quartet she has won First Prizes at the International Competitions in London (2000) and Hamburg (2002) and the National Music Prize in 2006, and as a soloist she has performed with orchestras such as the Santo Domingo Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of the Reina Sofia School of Music, the Palma Symphony Orchestra, the Andrés Segovia Chamber Orchestra and the Reina Sofia Chamber Orchestra. She has collaborated with the Deutsche Kammerphilarmonie Bremen and performed in chamber music concerts with musicians such as Gérard Caussé, Harald Schoneweg, Marta Gulyàs and Claudio Martínez Mehner. He regularly plays piano-violin recitals together with his brother Claudio and is a member of the group Funktion, with which he dedicates himself to the world of contemporary music.
Since the age of 18 she has been a founding member of the Casals Quartet, with which she has played concerts in the most prestigious concert halls in Europe, the United States, Latin America and Japan. She currently teaches violin and chamber music at the Escuela Superior de Música de Catalunya and is invited to give masterclasses in Europe and the United States.