This year the Australian String Quartet (ASQ) celebrates its 30th anniversary of musical excellence, performing Australia-wide and internationally.

As part of a national tour in 2015, the quartet will be in Canberra to present a concert at the NGA's Gandel Hall on March 1.

"We did two concerts at Gandel Hall last year," joint artistic director of the quartet, Stephen King, said. "It's a great performance space and we're really pleased to be including Canberra in our tour program."

Remember Tomorrow looks back to the beginning of the string quartet tradition with a masterwork by Haydn, his Emperor quartet, and to the future with Ross Edwards' Gallipoli. Liszt's Angelus and Shostakovich's String Quartet no 3 in F major opus 73 are also on the program.

"The Edwards piece is the centrepiece of the concert," King says. "It was launched on a CD on Remembrance Day last year as part of the Earth Festival."

In November 1914 troops from Australia and New Zealand left in convoy from King George Sound, Albany to serve in Europe. The following year on April 25 the historic Gallipoli landing took place. Edwards' evocative work commemorates this event. "It's a hauntingly beautiful piece," King says.

Haydn's String Quartet in C major op 76 no 3 opened the quartet's very first public concert in 1985. This work is known as the "Emperor" as the theme of the second movement was originally commissioned as the Austrian national anthem. In 1922 after the collapse of the Austrian Empire, this melody was commandeered as the theme of the German national anthem.

Liszt's Angelus was originally written as a piano piece but later arranged as a quartet and then for an orchestra. It is rarely performed, "and it's really beautiful," King says.

"The Shostakovich is an immense work," King says.

"It really stretches the quartet genre in scale. Each movement is a reference to the emotions that are experienced in war. The last movement – moderato – ends in a stasis. The work is a great journey looking at conflict and resolution. The Quartet is lucky enough to have the manuscript of this work with the titles that Shostakovich gave to each movement."

Since the formation of the ASQ, there has been a continuing flux of personnel, the latest change being the departure of violinists Kristian Winther and Ioana Tache at the end of last year. King and cellist Sharon Draper remain as the core of the ensemble and are now seeking two violinists to replace Winther and Tache.

"We're in the process of rebuilding," King says, "trialling many violinists and taking time to get it right."

For this Canberra concert, Wilma Smith, concertmaster of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, will join the quartet as first violin and freelance artist Cameron Hill, who was Young Performer of the Year in 2006, will join as second violin.

Smith, who was born in Fiji and raised in New Zealand, has an impressive list of achievements including playing regularly with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the formation of the New Zealand String Quartet and the creation of her own chamber music series, "Wilma and Friends."

Hill was an Australian Chamber Orchestra Emerging Artist in 2008 and has been guest concertmaster of the Melbourne Symphony.