Elina Buksha, violin
Charlotte Chahuneau, violin
Grégoire Vecchioni, viola
Caroline Sypnewski, cello
The Quatuor Lakmé was born in 2025 out of the desire of musicians already renowned in their respective solo and chamber music careers to work together on the string quartet repertoire. Elina, Charlotte, Grégoire and Caroline all trained as string quartet players with Günter Pichler at the Escuela Reina Sofia in Madrid, and have a wealth of experience as members of a number of award-winning ensembles (Mona Quartet, Van Kuijk Quartet, Trio Sypniewski, Capucelli). They have forged strong musical links with each other that infuse their joint research. The Quartet is in residence at the Fondation Singer-Polignac in Paris and this season will be performing at the European Parliament, Festival Vibre Bordeaux and Festival Hier et Aujourd’hui.
Elina, a Latvian national, is described by Strad Magazine as a musician with ‘a capacity for fantasy and narrative’, ‘intensely convincing in her technical agility and individuality’. She is a laureate of the 2019 Kulturkreis Gasteig Musikpreis in Munich. She trained with Augustin Dumay at the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth, Christophe Poppen at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and then with the celebrated violinist Midori and Ana Chumachenko. She has performed at the Wigmore Hall London, Auditorium du Louvre Paris, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Palais de Beaux Arts Brussels, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall Moscow and as soloist with the orchestras I Virtuosi del Teatro alla Scala, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège and many others. Elina is also the curator of a project based around music and perfume.
Charlotte, a French national, studied with Latica Honda-Rosenberg at the Universität der Künste Berlin and Eberhard Feltz at Hanns Eisler Berlin. She won the Villa Musica Stern Prize in 2020, and was engaged for several years at the Staatskapelle Berlin under Daniel Barenboim before joining the Paris Opera. She also plays regularly with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and as a chamber musician at major European festivals such as Open Chamber Music Prussia Cove, Rencontres Musicales d’Evian, Festival Salon de Provence and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. She has performed with Pinchas Zukerman, Jens Peter Maintz, Éric Le Sage and the Quatuor Modigliani. As a member of the Mona Quartet, she has performed at the Biennale du Quatuor à cordes Philharmonie de Paris, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and Philharmonie du Luxembourg. Charlotte also holds a master’s degree in Political Arts from SciencesPo Paris, directed by the philosopher Bruno Latour.
Grégoire, appointed principal viola of the Paris Opéra by Gustavo Dudamel in 2022, is recognised as one of the most talented violists of his generation. A founding member of the Van Kuijk Quartet, with whom he won 1st prize in the Wigmore Hall String Quartet Competition, he has also shared the stage with the Modigliani, Ebène and Belcea quartets, and collaborates regularly with Liya Petrova, Alexandre Kantorow, Aurélien Pascal, Béatrice Rana and Adam Laloum. He trained with Françoise Gneri at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon and Gérard Caussé and Antoine Tamestit at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. Since 2023, he has taught at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris as assistant professor in Françoise Gnéri’s class.
Caroline, named Révélation Classique by Adami (2017) and Jeune Talent at the Fête de la Musique et du Vin at Clos-Vougeot (2019), has been awarded the Prix Ginette Neveu by the Académie Carl Flesch (2015) and the Grand Prix by the Académie Ravel (2018). She performs as soloist and chamber musician in numerous festivals such as the Festival de Pâques Aix-en-Provence, Verbier, Prades, Deauville, Festival Radio-France de Montpellier and in the great halls of Victoria Hall Geneva, Opéra Garnier, Philharmonie de Paris, Schloss Elmau. She has shared the stage with Alexandre Kantorow, Renaud Capuçon, Gautier Capuçon, Emmanuel Pahud and the Modigliani Quartet. Together with her two sisters, she founded the Sypniewski trio and plays regularly with Gautier Capuçon’s Capucelli cello ensemble. She has also appeared as soloist with the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Dijon-Bourgogne and many others. She studied with Jérôme Pernoo at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, then perfected her skills in Gautier Capuçon’s class of excellence at the Fondation Louis Vuitton and with Clemens Hagen at the Salzburg Mozarteum. She also won prizes for piano and accompaniment while studying the cello.
