Australian String Quartet

The Australian String Quartet (ASQ) is a chamber music group founded in 1985 and based at the University of Adelaide, South Australia.

It delivers an artistic program of performances, workshops, commissions, digital content and education projects across Australia and abroad.

The quartet performs on a matched set of string instruments hand crafted by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini between c.1743-1784 in Italy.

Guest artists have included pianists Angela Hewitt, Angela Lam and Piers Lane, mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, clarinettists Michael Collins and Ashley Smith, violist Brett Dean and cellist Pieter Wispelwey.

In 2014-15, a documentary Highly Strung was made about the ASQ that documented the break-up of the quartet as it was then, plus the making of a copy of the cello by Italian luthier Roberto Cavagnoli.