Fine Arts Quartet

The Fine Arts Quartet is a chamber music ensemble founded in Chicago, United States in 1946 by Leonard Sorkin and George Sopkin. The Quartet has recorded over 200 works and has toured internationally for 77 years, making it one of the longest enduring major string quartets. In its history, the Quartet has had two leaders: Leonard Sorkin, from 1946 to 1981, and Ralph Evans, from 1982 to the present. Its current members are violinists Ralph Evans and Efim Boico (who have been playing together in the Quartet since 1983), violist Gil Sharon, and cellist Niklas Schmidt.

Although the Fine Arts Quartet was founded in 1946, the group's members had 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 Quartet members have helped nurture many young international ensembles. Their first teaching residency, 1951–1954, at Northwestern University, was followed by a 55 year residency, 1963 2018 (concluded in January 2018),
as Quartet in Residence at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. In 1982, Leonard Sorkin founded the Chamber Music Institute at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and became its first director and served in that capacity until his death in 1985. The Quartet members have also been guest professors at the national music conservatories of Paris and Lyon, the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music in London, the summer music schools of Yale University and Indiana University, and at music festivals world wide. They have appeared 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.

The Quartet performed on the ABC Radio Network's Sunday morning broadcasts from 1946 until 1954. In the mid fifties, there was an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, 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 performed in 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 released over 100 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. The Quartet also performed contemporary music in performances, commissions, and recordings, and helped to make composers such as Bartók, Shostakovich, Bloch, Babbitt, Wuorinen, Martinon, Hindemith, Shifrin, Crawford Seeger, Johnston, and Husa better known and accessible to the public. Their recordings of the six quartets of Béla Bartók followed a television series featuring a performance of each, preceded by interviews and commentary by the performers, with musical illustrations. The quartet was an advocate of what was then still comparatively unfamiliar and avant garde repertoire.

The Quartet's extensive discography includes releases of the piano quartets and quintets of Saint Saëns and Schumann, the string quartets of Zimbalist and Kreisler, "Harmonies du Soir" by Ysaÿe for quartet and string orchestra, clarinet quintets by Bernard Herrmann and David del Tredici, the two Saint Saëns string quartets, 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 two Mendelssohn string quintets, chamber music by Glazunov, the complete Dohnányi string quartets and piano quintets, the complete Mozart String Quintets, and the complete Op.18 Beethoven quartets. A complete discography is listed below.

The Quartet's Fauré quintets CD on Naxos 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"). It was also named a "Gramophone award winner and recording of legendary status" in the 2012 Gramophone Classical Music Guide. Its Glazunov, Mendelssohn, and Fauré CDs 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 its box set of the complete Mozart string quintets, released by Lyrinx in SACD format, was named a "Critic's Choice 2003" by the American Record Guide. Special recognition was 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.