Poland's Royal String Quartet has expertly steered a course among Western mainstream, Polish, and various kinds of pop repertories, including electronic. The quartet's name apparently denotes a general sense of royalty rather than any specific monarchy. The quartet's members were students at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, studying with players from the Camerata and Wilanów Quartets, when they came together in 1998. They graduated from the academy in the early 2000s, decided to stay together, and moved on to the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany, for graduate studies with the Alban Berg Quartet and master classes with the Amadeus, Guarneri, and Chilingirian Quartets. With this top-notch training, the group landed a coveted spot as BBC New Generation Artists, with a term running from 2004 to 2006. Since then, they have performed at or hosted festivals in Poland, the U.K., Germany, France, and Australia, and they have organized their own Kwartesencja chamber music festival. The Royal String Quartet has appeared at major world chamber venues, often multiple times, including Washington's National Gallery of Art, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Wigmore Hall and Cadogan Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and several durable Polish venues. They have collaborated in chamber groups with Angela Hewitt, Stephen Kovacevich, and other major performers. They performed for Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 and have served as quartet-in-residence at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Contemporary music has figured heavily in their programming, and in Poland they have collaborated with pop and rock bands, and with the electronic DJ Lenar. The Royal String Quartet has been one of the few ensembles from Eastern Europe to record for the British label Hyperion, making their debut there in 2009 with an album of quartets by Szymanowski and Rózycki after recording several albums for Polish labels. They have since recorded further albums for Hyperion, specializing in Polish music but including an album of quartets by British composer James MacMillan in 2018. They have given master classes themselves, at the Dartington and the Lake District Summer School in the U.K. ~ James Manheim