The Lotus Quartet is one of the few all-female string quartets to have performed at the highest artistic level in an almost unchanged line-up for decades. Founded in Tokyo in 1992 and based in Stuttgart for many years, the ensemble's distinctive spirit lies in its synthesis of Japanese and German cultural influences, a continuously evolving dialogue.

Beginning with the 2025/26 season, violinist Christine Busch joins the quartet. Professor in Stuttgart and an acclaimed specialist in historical performance practice, Busch has received high praise for her recordings, including an interpretation of J. S. Bach's Sonatas and Partitas. Alongside her work as concertmaster with leading international ensembles, she is intensely devoted to chamber music. In the new formation, Sachiko Kobayashi and Christine Buschwill alternate in the two violin roles. Their first major project together will be a Japan tour in March 2026, featuring quartets by Brahms, Mozart, Schubert, and Webern.

The Lotus Quartet's core repertoire spans the string quartets of the Viennese classical period and German Romanticism as well as the French Impressionists. Works by contemporary Japanese composers such as Töru Takemitsu and Toshio Hosokawa are just as integral to the ensemble's identity. Modernism is represented in particular by Helmut Lachenmann and the Second Viennese School. The quartet's recordings of Mozart quartets and contemporary Japanese works (Teldec, 1997 and 2000) as well as of lesser-known quartets by Johann Baptist Vanhal (cpo, 2014) have received outstanding critical acclaim, helping to dispel long-held stereotypes that Asian musicians might lack a deep affinity with the spiritual world of the European repertoire.

In 1993, the Lotus Quartet won Third Prize at the prestigious International Chamber Music Competition in Osaka. A scholarship enabled the four musicians to study with the Amadeus and Melos Quartets, the latter later becoming their mentors at the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart. Further competition successes followed swiftly: Second Prize at the Viotti Competition in Italy (1995), the Menuhin Prize at the London String Quartet Competition, Third Prize at the Premio Paolo Borciani, and First Prize at the Kulturkreis der Deutschen Wirtschaft competition in 1996/97.

Within a few years, the Lotus Quartet established itself as a welcome guest at leading German chamber music series in Munich, Erfurt, Bruchsal, and Braunschweig, as well as major festivals such as the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein Music Festivals, where they collaborated closely with Walter Levinof the legendary LaSalle Quartet. The ensemble's international career began soon after, with concerts in Valencia, Zurich, Tokyo, and Osaka, followed by appearances in major venues such as the Konzerthaus Berlin, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, and the Stuttgart Liederhalle.

Since 1998, the quartet has performed annually in Darmstadt, where it presented the complete Beethoven string quartets, later followed by a Schubert cycle (2004)and the ten mature Mozart quartets with his quintets (2008). The ensemble celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2012 with a concert at Osaka's Izumi Hall, recorded by NHK Television, and returned to Japan in 2017 and 2018 for complete Beethoven cycles. In February 2023, marking its 30th anniversary, the quartet performed all six Mendelssohn quartets across two evenings.

Chamber music partners of the Lotus Quartet have included Wolfgang Boettcher, Martin Fröst, Sebastian Manz, Peter Buck, Wolfgang Güttler, Philippe Tondre, and Bernd Glemser.

November 2025

Lotus Quartet, Stuttgart
Christine Busch (Violin)
Sachiko Kobayashi (Violin)
Tomoko Yamasaki (Viola)
Chihiro Saito (Cello)

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