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The Butter Quartet consists of four musicians brought together by their mutual love of vibrant historically-informed performance of string quartets. They have been featured in international festivals in Europe, and their performances have been broadcast on national classical radio in the Netherlands, France, Slovenia, and the UK.

The ensemble has performed at The String Quartet Biënnale Amsterdam, the York Early Music Festival, the Utrecht Early Music Festival, Mozartfest Würzburg, and the Beethoven Academy at the National Forum for Music in Poland. Their performances have been broadcast on national classical radio in the Netherlands, France, Slovenia, and the UK.

After five years of performing together internationally, the quartet has released their debut album, Scintilla, based around early Italian string quartets. While researching first editions and manuscripts, they found many 18th-century quartets that have never been recorded, but which are incredibly dynamic, powerful, and joyful.

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Anna Jane Lester

Anna Jane Lester is a violinist & illustrator. She has performed with internationally-acclaimed period instrument ensembles such as Holland Baroque (member since 2018), the Internationale Händel Festspiele Göttingen Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Gabrieli Players, the English Baroque Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, The English Concert, PRJCT Amsterdam, L’Arpeggiata, Vox Luminis, and the Luthers Bach Ensemble. Her chamber performances have brought her to stages from the Concertgebouw Amsterdam to the Smithsonian Institute to the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht.

Anna Jane began her violin studies at age four in Jacksonville, Florida, studying with Melissa Pierson Barrett before attending Vanderbilt University and earning her bachelor’s degree in violin performance with Cornelia Heard. She then attended The Juilliard School for a Master of Music in Historical Performance, studying with Monica Huggett and Cynthia Roberts. She has since moved to the Netherlands, completing her studies with Walter Reiter and Kati Debretzeni. She plays an 18th-century Odoardi violin on generous loan from the Nationaal Muziekinstrumenten Fonds. In her free time, Anna Jane enjoys exploring American old time music and spending time in wild places.

Chloe Prendergast

Chloe Prendergast is a violinist based in the Netherlands. She is a core member of Holland Baroque, as well as a founding member of the Butter Quartet, a period-instrument string quartet dedicated to the world of 18th- and early 19th-century performance practice. She is co-creator of the podcast Outside the MusicBox as well as its associated concert series, both of which break down barriers surrounding conventional classical music concerts in order to reach new classical music-lovers. 

Chloe has performed across North America, the UK, and Europe with groups including English Baroque Soloists, the Handel and Haydn Society, Seattle’s Pacific Musicworks, Vox Luminis, the Henry Purcell Society of Boston, the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, Luthers Bach Ensemble, and Le Concert d'Apollon. She has also appeared at music festivals internationally, including the Utrecht Early Music Festival, Wonderfeel, Leipzig Bachfest, the Connecticut Early Music Festival, and the Beethoven Academy at the National Forum for Music in Poland.

Chloe completed her master’s degree at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague with Kati Debretzeni and Walter Reiter and her bachelor’s degree at Willamette University, where she was a Phil Hanni scholar and studied principally with Anthea Kreston and Daniel Rouslin. 

Isabel Franenberg

Isabel Franenberg is a freelance violist from the Netherlands. She is a founding member of the Butter Quartet, and regularly plays with the Luthers Bach Ensemble and the Laurens Cantorij en Orkest. She has been invited to play with ensembles such as the Nederlandse Bachvereniging, Tulipa Consort, The Northern Consort, Ribattuta Musica, Das Neue Manheimer Orchester, and Holland Baroque.

Isabel studied historical viola at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Sayuri Yamagata and Shunske Sato and at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Kati Debrezeni. Alongside her conservatory studies, she played in the European Union Baroque Orchestra (EUBO) where she toured Europe extensively under Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Margaret Faultless and Alfredo Bernardini. She participated in masterclasses with Clive Brown, Sigiswald Kuijken, Jane Rogers, Robert Levin and Laurens Dreyfus. 

Before studying viola, Isabel completed a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Musicology at the University of Utrecht with a minor in Art History. She worked as producer, manager, librarian and fundraiser for orchestras such as the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Holland Baroque and the Nederlands Studenten Orkest.

Evan Buttar

Evan Buttar enjoys a varied and international performing career on both the baroque cello and viola da gamba. He has performed with groups such as the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Le Concert des Nations, Ensemble Zefiro, PRJCT Amsterdam, and Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, and regularly plays with the Luthers Bach Ensemble, Musica Gloria, and the Butter Quartet, a historically-informed string quartet of which he is a founding member. His chamber and orchestral experiences have brought him to international stages in numerous festivals, including Utrecht Early Music Festival, Mozartfest Würzburg, Festival Berlioz, Chopin and his Europe Festival, the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, the Beethoven Academy in Wrocław, Musica Antica da Camera, and the Geelvinck Fortepiano Festival.

Evan started playing music at a young age in Vancouver, Canada. After completing a bachelor’s degree in modern cello at the University of Ottawa in 2014, his fascination with historically informed performance practice inspired his move to the Netherlands, where he currently resides. There he obtained a baroque cello master’s degree with Jaap ter Linden at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague in 2016, and that same year started a second master’s study there on the viola da gamba with Mieneke van der Velden and Philippe Pierlot, which he completed in 2018.

Evan plays a baroque cello by Jakob Weiss (ca. 1745) generously on loan from the collection of The Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation (het Nationaal Muziekinstrumenten Fonds).