Takács Quartet

 Recognized as one of the world’s great ensembles, the Takács Quartet plays with a unique blend of drama, warmth and humor, combining four distinct musical personalities to bring fresh insights to the string quartet repertoire.

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér, while all four were students. Violinist Edward Dusinberre joined the Quartet in 1993 and violist Geraldine Walther joined in 2005.

The Takács first received international attention in 1977, when they won the first of many international music competitions and awards which they continue to be awarded. In 2001 the Takács Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight’s Cross of the Republic of Hungary, and in March of 2011 each member of the Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit Commander’s Cross by the President of the Republic of Hungary. In 2012, Gramophone announced that the Takács was the only string quartet to be inducted into its first Hall of Fame, along with such legendary artists as Jascha Heifetz, Leonard Bernstein and Dame Janet Baker. The ensemble also won the 2011 Award for Chamber Music and Song presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London.

For thirty-two years the ensemble, as Christoffersen Faculty Fellows, has been in residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The Quartet has helped to develop a string program with a special emphasis on chamber music, where students work in a nurturing environment designed to help them develop their artistry. A graduate quartet residency program enables students to work intensively with members of the Takács and other string faculty.

The Takács Quartet often performs with such internationally recognized actors as Meryl Streep and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.  In addition, programs are conceived in close collaboration writers such as Philip Roth and the poet Robert Pinsky. They also collaborate regularly with the Hungarian Folk group Muzsikas, and in 2010 they collaborated with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and David Lawrence Morse on a drama project that explored the composition of Beethoven’s last quartets.

The Quartet’s award-winning recordings include sixteen recordings for the Decca and Hyperion labels since 1988 of works by Beethoven, Bartók, Borodin, Brahms, Britten, Chausson, Debussy, Dvo?ák, Franck, Haydn, Janacek, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Shostakovich, and Smetana. The ensemble’s recording of the six Bartók String Quartets received the 1998 Gramophone Award for chamber music and, in 1999, was nominated for a Grammy. In 2005 the Late Beethoven Quartets won Disc of the Year and Chamber Award from BBC Music Magazine, a Gramophone Award, Album of the Year at the Brit Awards and a Japanese Record Academy Award. Their recordings of the early and middle Beethoven quartets collected a Grammy, another Gramophone Award, a Chamber Music of America Award and two further awards from the Japanese Recording Academy. Of their performances and recordings of the Late Quartets, the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote “The Takács might play this repertoire better than any quartet of the past or present.”