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© Casey A Cass/University of Colorado .

Recognised as one of the world's premiere string quartets, the Takács Quartet is renowned for the ability to fuse four distinct, expressive musical personalities into gripping, unified interpretations. Commenting on a recent Schubert recording for Hyperion, Gramophone Magazine noted ; "The Takács have the ability to make you believe that there's no other possible way the music should go, and the strength to overturn preconceptions that comes only with the greatest performers."

Based in Colorado, the Takács Quartet performs ninety concerts a year worldwide, performing throughout Europe as well as in Australia and New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. The Quartet members are Associate Artists at the South Bank Centre in London, performing several concerts there each year. In 2008-9 the Quartet will build its London programmes around the music of Schumann, culminating in a recording of the piano quintet with Marc-Andre Hamelin in May 2009. Other highlights of the 2008-9 season include the world premiere and performances throughout Europe of a quartet written for them by Wolfgang Rihm, three concerts to celebrate the re-opening of Alice Tully Hall in New York featuring a Bartók cycle, and a tour of Asia in June. In a North American tour, the Quartet will continue its collaboration with the Hungarian folk ensemble Muzsikás and the singer Marta Sebestyen.

The Quartet's multi-award-winning recordings include the Late Quartets by Beethoven which, in 2005, won Disc of the Year and Chamber Award from BBC Music Magazine, a Gramophone Award and a Japanese Record Academy Award. Its recordings of the early and middle-period Beethoven quartets collected a Grammy, another Gramophone Award, a Chamber Music of America Award and two further awards from the Japanese Record Academy. The Takács made a further sixteen recordings for Decca of repertoire by Bartók (1998 Gramophone Award), Borodin, Brahms, Chausson, Dvorák, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Smetana. In 2005 the Takács Quartet signed a contract with Hyperion Records, and has since recorded works by Schubert and Brahms to great acclaim. A Schumann disc is scheduled for release in 2009. Full details of all these discs can be found on the Quartet's website, www.takacsquartet.com

The Quartet is known for innovative programming. In 2007 it performed "Everyman" with actor Philip Seymour Hoffman at Carnegie Hall in a programme inspired by the Philip Roth novel of that name. In May 2008 the Takács gave the world premiere of a work by James MacMillan, commissioned by the South Bank Centre. The Takács has performed a music and poetry programme around the USA with poet Robert Pinsky.

At the University of Colorado, the Takács Quartet has helped to develop a string programme with a special emphasis on chamber music. The Quartet's commitment to teaching is enhanced by summer residencies at the Aspen Festival and at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. The Takács is Visiting Quartet at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Karóly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejer. It first received international recognition in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics' Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Quartet also won the Gold Medal at the Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition in 1978 and the Bratislava Competition in 1981. Edward Dusinberre joined the Quartet in 1993 and violist Roger Tapping in 1995. Geraldine Walther replaced Roger Tapping in 2005.

In 2001 the Takács Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight's Cross of the Republic of Hungary.

February 2009