AFTER leading the renowned Borodin Quartet for 20 years, Mikhail Kopelman formed his own Russias string quartet.

And now Malvern Concert Club has scored the considerable coup of getting one of the world's greatest ensembles to visit the town.

Mikhail Kopelman left his position as first violinist in the Borodin Quartet when he emigrated to the USA in 1996. He spent six years leading another renowned ensemble, the Tokyo Quartet, but the pull of Russian musicanship is strong and he decided to found his own quartet.

Together with some of his contemporaries from the Moscow Conservatoire, all now distingushed players and teachers in their own right, he started the Kopelman Quartet in 2002.

All four were at the Conservatoire, one of the greatest music colleges in the world, in perhaps its greatest days, when legendary teachers and composers, including Rostropovich and Shostakovitch, worked with the students.

As well as being first-class players, they have between them approximately 120 years of experience of chamber music at the highest levels.

Their connection with the UK is strong; them made their formal debut in 2003 with a residence and concert sponsored by the Aldeburgh Foundation in Suffolk and they appear each season at London's Wigmore Hall - this year, two days after the Malvern concert.

For the Malvern concert on Thursday, May 17, the quartet will be playing an all-Russian programme, including the lyrical Second of Borodin, Shostakovich's Eights, written after his visit to the ruins of Dresden, and Tchaikovsky's sadly-neglected Third. A large audience is expected, and tickets are available from the Malvern Theatres box office on 01684 892277.