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Fine Arts Quartet

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Fine Arts Quartet: Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, Wolfgang Laufer, Nicolò Eugelmi in Vietri sul Mare, July 2009

The Fine Arts Quartet, a distinguished chamber music ensemble founded in Chicago, USA in 1946 by Leonard Sorkin and George Sopkin, has an illustrious history of performing success and an extensive recording legacy. It is one of the few to have recorded and toured internationally for over half a century. The Quartet, based at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee since 1963, continues to tour worldwide each season, with concerts in such musical centers as New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Rome, Madrid, Tokyo, Beijing, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Mexico City, and Toronto. Three of the Quartet's artists, violinist Ralph Evans, violinist Efim Boico, and cellist Wolfgang Laufer, have performed together for over a quarter century. Violist Nicolò Eugelmi joined the Quartet in July 2009.

History

Although the Fine Arts Quartet was founded in 1946, the group's members had actually begun working together as early as 1939 while playing in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The Quartet's first performance took place in 1940 with Leonard Sorkin, Ben Senescu, Sheppard Lehnhoff, and George Sopkin. Military service in World War II intervened, however, and it was not until 1946, now with the new second violinist Joseph Stepansky, that the Quartet began to rehearse and perform regularly. The complete membership history of the Fine Arts Quartet, from 1946 to the present, is detailed in a section below.

The Quartet members have helped form and nurture many of today's top international young ensembles. Their first teaching residency, 1951-1954, was at Northwestern University. In 1963, the Quartet was invited to become Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and its members have been professors there ever since. In recent years, they have also been guest professors at the national music conservatories of Paris and Lyon, as well as at the summer music schools of Yale University and Indiana University. They appear regularly as jury members of major competitions such as Evian, Shostakovich, and Bordeaux. Documentaries on the Fine Arts Quartet have appeared on both French and American Public Television.

Early Recordings and Performance

The Quartet performed on the ABC Radio Network's Sunday morning broadcasts from 1946 until 1954, and by the mid-fifties, was already considered one of America's finest quartets. There was an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, frequent performances on the Today Show, and starting in 1958, the Quartet began to tour Europe annually. In the late sixties, the United States Department of State sponsored the Quartet's tours to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, and by the late seventies, the Quartet had already performed in some 270 cities in 28 countries. The Quartet continued to broadcast for radio in America (especially for WFMT-Chicago), in Europe (e.g. the BBC), and for television (concerts and educational programs for National Public Television).

The Quartet was also extremely busy recording, releasing over one hundred works during its first 30 years of existence, including cycles of chamber music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, on such labels as Decca, Vox, Vanguard, Saga, and Concert Disc. But the Quartet was also appreciated for promoting contemporary music through performances, commissions, and recordings, and played a major role in making composers such as Bartók, Shostakovich, Bloch, Babbitt, Wuorinen, Martinon, Hindemith, Shifrin, Crawford-Seeger, Johnston, and Husa, better known and accessible to the public. In particular, their recordings of the six quartets of Béla Bartók became a landmark. These followed a television series featuring a performance of each, preceded by interviews and commentary by the performers, with musical illustrations. The quartet's ability to communicate both the compositional and performing aspects of the works made them powerful advocates of what was then still comparatively unfamiliar and avant-garde repertoire.

Recent Recordings and Recognition

The Quartet has recorded over 200 works, 70 of them with Evans, Boico, and Laufer. Their latest releases include: three Beethoven String Quintets, the Franck String Quartet and Piano Quintet, the two Fauré Piano Quintets, the complete Bruckner chamber music (including his String Quartet and Quintet), quartets by American composers (Antheil, Herrmann, Glass, Evans), the complete Schumann String Quartets, the complete Mendelssohn String Quintets, chamber music by Glazunov, all on Naxos, the complete Dohnányi String Quartets and Piano Quintets on Aulos, and the complete early Beethoven Quartets on Lyrinx. Releases planned for 2010 include the two Saint-Saëns String Quartets, on Naxos, and three Shostakovich quartets, on Lyrinx. A complete list of all known Fine Arts Quartet recordings can be found on the Discography link listed below.

The Quartet's recent recordings have received many accolades. Their Glazunov, Mendelssohn, and Fauré CD's were each named a "Recording of the Year" by Musicweb International in 2007, 2008, 2009, respectively. Their "Four American Quartets" album was designated a "BBC Music Magazine Choice" in 2008. The Quartet's Schumann CD was called "one of the very finest chamber music recordings of the year" by the American Record Guide in 2007, and their box set of the complete Mozart String Quintets, released by Lyrinx in Super Audio CD format, was named a "Critic's Choice 2003" by the American Record Guide. The Quartet's Fauré CD with pianist Cristina Ortiz was among the five recordings for which music producer Steven Epstein won a Grammy Award in 2010 ("Producer of the Year, Classical"). Special recognition was also given for the Quartet's commitment to contemporary music: a 2003-2004 national CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, given jointly by Chamber Music America and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.

Fine Arts Quartet Membership History

1st Violin:

2nd Violin:

Viola:

Violoncello:

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