The string quartet “Vacuum Quartet”, formerly known as the A&C String Quartet was created in 2016 at the Moscow State Conservatory. Initially, the team included musicians of the Faculty of Historical and Contemporary Performing Arts (FISII) at the Moscow Conservatory. The main task of the group was to perform music of the 18th century in a historically correct form.

Currently, A&C SQ specializes in the performance and promotion of the latest quartet music. The ensemble’s repertoire includes works by composers of the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries from composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas, Helmut Lachenman, Giacinto Scelsi, Giulio Colangelo, Steve Reich, Osvaldo Golijov, Franck Bedrossian, Dmitri Kourliandski, Toru Takemitsu and others.

In 2019, the quartet took part in the 6th St. Petersburg International New Music Festival “reMusik.org” and in the Academy for string quartets “Casa del Quartetto” in Italy. In January 2020, the A&C string quartet gave a concert at the Karusel Contemporary Art Festival, featuring world premieres of young Russian composers in Dresden, Germany. In November 2020, the team took part in the X International Academy of Tchaikovsky  in Russia. The quartet’s musicians collaborated with such composers as Oscar Bianchi, Allen Gassin, Yair Klartag, Helmut Lachenman, as well as Olga Raeva, Alexey Sysoev, Sergei Nevsky, and Alexander Khubeev. In November 2020, the quartet changed their name to “Vacuum Quartet”.