REMEMBERINGmany of the best musicians who learned their trade in the same youth orchestras as I did and have since gone on to fill roles in the highest echelons of musical standards, two of them paint a particularly vivid memory.

But, more importantly, as half of a young string quartet that is earning ever greater acclaim, they represent another international feather in the cap of our country's artistic ability.

The Irish half of the Carducci quartet are violinists Michelle Fleming and Eoin SchmidtMartin, alumni of the prolific Cork School of Music. For as long as I've known them, they have not only been each others' other half but also chamber music partners in various guises, in the Quay quintet, for example, winners of the RTE Millenium Musician of the Year Ensemble Prize. Having teamed up with English violinistcellist couple Matthew and Emma Denton, and based themselves in London, Michelle and Eoin are laying part claim to even more significant prizes. Most recently, the Carducci quartet was awarded the Jury prize at the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition, with first prize at the 2004 Kuhmo International Chamber Music Competition and a "Communication and Culture" award at the 2005 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition already in the bag.

Audiences at last year's West Cork Chamber Music Festival will fondly remember the Carducci from the three concerts with which they enchanted audiences.

With a programme of Haydn ("Frog"), Ravel and Dvor�k ("American"), the Carducci quartet this week undertakes its first nationwide Irish tour. It begins in Cork, namely Fota House in Carrigtwohill on Tuesday (6 March), with subsequent performances in Listowell's St John's Theatre (7 March), the National Concert Hall (9), Wexford Arts Centre (9, 8:30pm), the Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray (10) and Birr Theatre on 11 March.

A quartet whom Michelle Fleming and Eoin Schmidt-Martin would certainly cite as a formative influence on their respective careers is, of course, the Corkbased RTE Vanbrugh String Quartet, which, with a 3:15pm recital today at the National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square, brings to a close their second tour of this, their 21st year.

Violist Gareth Knox joins the Vanbrugh men for Beethoven's C minor string quintet, which follows the same composer's string quartet no 12, op 127.

The RTE Vanbrugh quartet were last seen in action during the recent RTE Living Music Festival, with composer John Adams the focus of this year's jam-packed programme of events. A tale that will be told for decades, a Bartok pizzicato that resulted in not only a broken string but a broken bridge for the unlucky but lighthearted Keith Pascoe did not deter the RTE Vanbrugh from giving a spirited and compelling performance of the aforementioned Hungarian's fourth quartet and Adams's John's Book of Alleged Dances. Other highlights included Simon Nabatov's genius piano improvisations and the performance of the London Sinfonietta under Brad Lubman.

In their gig at Vicar Street, Crash Ensemble showed cracks of under-rehearsal and a hesitancy that could have been avoided by performing at least the Gordon and the Shaker Loops with a conductor. In the case of the London Sinfonietta the general presence of Lubman, even in the Gordon quintet, was altogether a wise choice and gave rise to inchperfect renditions of the last programme of that weekend.

Executive director of RTE Performing Groups, Niall Doyle, afterwards announced that Avro P�rt is the chosen composer for the 2008 festival, which, at the least, will certainly make for lots of use of the "now for something completely different" clich�.