The East Side Oktett
made up of musicians from the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, was founded by the violinist Philipp Beckert as a string quartet. In 2010, at the suggestion and encouragement of their principal conductor Marek Janowski, they performed Schubert's Octet. This performance brought the orchestra's first-class wind soloists together with the string quartet for the first time and since then they have played regularly in this formation.