Fine Arts Quartet

Since its establishment more than seven decades ago, the Fine Arts Quartet has ranked among the longest-lasting prominent string ensembles of the postwar period, maintaining a steady artistic identity even as membership has shifted repeatedly. Its programming spans an unusually wide range, incorporating standard quartet literature alongside new compositions and seldom-heard works from earlier centuries. The ensemble has been featured on American and European television and radio, has documented more than two hundred compositions, and has maintained a vigorous international touring schedule. Its recorded output grew further in 2023 with the release of George Enescu: Early Chamber Music.

Formed in Chicago during 1946, the quartet originally consisted of four musicians then or formerly affiliated with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: Leonard Sorkin on first violin, Joseph Stepansky on second violin, Sheppard Lehnhoff on viola, and George Sopkin on cello. An earlier attempt at assembly in 1940 involving second violinist Ben Senescu was postponed by World War II. Among American quartets, the Fine Arts is distinctive for its appearances on national programs including The Today Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, in addition to numerous broadcasts on radio and public television throughout the United States and Europe. Between its founding and 1954 the group performed regularly on ABC network radio each Sunday morning. Occasional television appearances began in the 1950s, and annual European tours commenced in 1958. In the late 1960s the quartet visited Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia under U.S. State Department auspices. Its operational base remained at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee from 1963 until 2018.

The personnel roster has undergone many alterations, especially in the viola chair. Ralph Evans succeeded Sorkin in 1982, becoming the final original member to depart. Efim Boico has held the second-violin position since 1983. Two further changes occurred in 2018 with the arrival of Gil Sharon, the eleventh violist in the ensemble’s history, and cellist Niklas Schmidt. The quartet’s advocacy of contemporary music earned it the 2003–2004 Award for Adventurous Programming presented by Chamber Music America and ASCAP.

Recordings have appeared on Naxos, Music & Arts, Lyrinx, Columbia Masterworks, Everest, and Vox. Critical recognition has come from Gramophone Magazine, Musicweb International, BBC Music Magazine, and American Record Guide, accompanied by several Grammy nominations. Standout releases include the 1998 accounts of Dvořák’s quartets opp. 96 and 105, the 2003 complete Mozart string quintets (both on Lyrinx), and the 2009 Fauré piano quintets with Cristina Ortiz (Naxos), which received a Grammy Award. Additional notable projects encompass Ysaÿe’s Harmonies du Soir, the complete Schumann and Haydn quartets, and multiple recordings of Ignaz Lachner’s transcriptions of Mozart piano concertos featuring pianist Alon Goldstein. In 2023 the quartet collaborated with pianists Gisele Witkowski and Fabio Witkowski on a further Enescu project.