ABOUT US

The Saphir Quartet consists of Amanda Noor Vatn, Philippe Jayer, Torje Råbu and Iris Kalliovirta, all born in 2006. They have played together since 2018, studying at the Barratt-Due institute of music in Oslo. The quartet has performed at the Royal Palace of Norway, the National Theatre, the Nidaros Cathedral, and the University of Oslo’s Aula. Being part of Oslo Quartet Series’ talent program for young string quartets, they have performed at Sentralen and Gamle Logen, and had numerous masterclasses with international quartets, such as the Juilliard Quartet, Belcea Quartet, Brentano Quartet, Vertavo Quartet, Engegård Quartet, and Danish String Quartet. In the 2024/25 season, the Danish String Quartet will follow Saphir through the Voksenåsen music academies mentor program.

In 2019, Saphir appeared on Norway’s Got Talent, where they got the golden buzzer, resulting in worldwide attention and praise from the renowned YouTubers TwoSet Violin. Saphir has played at various Norwegian chamber music festivals, namely the Hemsing Festival; the Norsjø festival; Horten chamber music festival; Brahms på 123; and Absolutt Haydn, Vertavo's 35th-anniversary celebration. A very fun project happened in 2022, when they collaborated with the Norwegian Girls’ Choir, premiering a work called “Å høyra til” for string quartet and choir by the Norwegian composer Ståle Kleiberg. At the end of 2022, Saphir produced their own Christmas concert at Sentralen, inviting fellow student musicians to create a chamber orchestra, additionally including harpsichord, wind instruments, and singers.

In 2022 the Saphir quartet won their class at the Midgard Competition, and in 2023, they received the highest prize, the Midgard Prize, from the competition. In 2024, Saphir received the 1st prize in the junior string division of the 51st annual Fischoff national chamber music competition. In conjunction with participating in the Fischoff National Competition of 2023, the quartet held concerts for the May 17th celebrations in New York at the Norwegian Seamen’s Church and at DNB New York. In January of 2024, the Saphir Quartet got to play together with the Danish String Quartet at Gamle Logen in Oslo. On Saphir’s repertoire is quartets by Grieg, Bartok, Haydn, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Dvořák, Beethoven and Tsintsadze. Their teacher, Kari Ravnan, is a cellist in the Oslo Philharmonic, and has instructed the quartet since 2018.