Fine Arts Quartet

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 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. As of 2008, three of the Quartet's artists, Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, and Wolfgang Laufer, have performed together for a quarter century. Chauncey Patterson has joined them as interim violist for the 2008 summer season, replacing Yuri Gandelsman, who retired from the Quartet in 2008.

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 torehearse 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 two of America's finest summer music schools, 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, 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

The Quartet continues to actively record new works, with over 60 released on CD since 1985. The latest releases include: quartets by American composers (Antheil, Herrmann, Glass, Evans), the complete Schumann Quartets, the complete Mendelssohn String Quintets, chamber music by Glazunov, all on Naxos, and the complete Dohnányi Quartets and Quintets on Aulos. Releases planned for 2008-9 include the complete Bruckner chamber music, the Fauré Piano Quintets, the Franck String Quartet and Piano Quintet, all on Naxos, as well as the complete early Beethoven Quartets and three quartets by Shostakovich on Lyrinx. A complete list of all known Fine Arts Quartet recordings can be found on the Discography website listed below.

The Fine Arts Quartet's complete Schumann Quartets CD on Naxos was selected for the 50th Grammy Awards Entry List (2008) in two categories: "Best Classical Album" and "Best Chamber Music Performance". In addition, the Quartet's recordings of the complete Mozart String Quintets, released by Lyrinx in Super Audio CD format, were selected for the 2003 Grammy Entry List and designated a "Critic's Choice 2003" by the American Record Guide. 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:
*Leonard Sorkin (1946-1982)
*Ralph Evans (1982-current)

2nd Violin:
*Joseph Stepansky (1946-1954)
*Abraham Loft (1954-1980)
*Lawrence Shapiro (1980-1983)
*Efim Boico (1983-current)

Viola:
*Shephard Lehnhoff (1946-1952)
*Irving Ilmer (1952-1963)
*Gerald Stanick (1963-1968)
*Bernard Zaslav (1968-1980)
*Jerry Horner (1980-2000)
*Michael Strauss (2000-2001)
*Yuri Gandelsman (2001-2008)
*Chauncey Patterson (interim for summer 2008)

Violoncello:
*George Sopkin (1946-1979)
*Wolfgang Laufer (1979-current)

External links

* [http://www.fineartsquartet.org Fine Arts Quartet official website]
* [http://www.fineartsquartet.org/rec.html Fine Arts Quartet discography]
* [http://www.uwm.edu/Libraries/arch/findaids/uwmmss30.htm Fine Arts Quartet Archives]
* Duchen, Jessica (December, 2006). [http://www.jessicaduchen.co.uk/01_archive.htm "Sweet Smell of Success"] . "The Strad magazine", pp. 36-40.