France's Quatuor Modigliani ("Modigliani Quartet") has grown in visibility and significance since its founding in 2003. The group has begun to pass on its influences through its directorship of the revived Rencontres musicales d'Évian festival.
The quartet was founded by four friends who had been students at the Conservatoire de Paris: violinists Philippe Bernhard and Loïc Rio, violist Laurent Marfaing, and cellist François Kieffer. They took the name of Italian modern artist Amedeo Modigliani, Bernhard told the South Bend Tribune in Indiana, because "of what we consider to b...