Takács Quartet

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The Grammy-winning, Budapest-founded TAKÁCS QUARTET opens our 61st season on Thursday, September 24, 2026, at Libby Gardner Concert Hall on the University of Utah campus. Artists-in-residence at the University of Colorado Boulder, the Takács Quartet has performed at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, and the Paris Philharmonie, and is widely regarded as one of the great string quartets of our time.

Program: TBD

First time? WE’RE SO EXCITED YOU’RE HERE! Consider attending the free Pre-Concert Talk at 6:30 p.m. before the performance.

Featured Performers
- TAKÁCS QUARTET
- Edward Dusinberre, violin
- Harumi Rhodes, violin
- Richard O’Neill, viola
- András Fejér, cello

In recognition of its fiftieth anniversary, the Takács Quartet was the subject of an in-depth profile by the New York Times and featured on the cover of Strad magazine. The Takács released two anniversary season albums in 2025 for Hyperion Records: 'Flow' by Ngwenyama, composed for the ensemble, and an album of piano quintets by Dvořák and Price with Marc-André Hamelin. In August 2025 for Musica Viva in Australia, the ensemble plays a new work, 'Sonnet of an Emigrant' for quartet and narrator by Cathy Milliken with texts by Bertolt Brecht.

Edward Dusinberre, Harumi Rhodes, Richard O’Neill and András Fejér are engaged in upcoming projects including performances throughout the USA of Mozart viola quintets with Jordan Bak and a new string quartet, NEXUS, written for them by Clarice Assad. Their North American engagements include concerts in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Boston, Princeton, Ann Arbor, Washington DC, Duke University, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Cleveland, Phoenix and Portland.

The Takács maintains an international touring schedule. As Associate Artists at London’s Wigmore Hall, the group will present four concerts featuring works by Haydn, Assad, Debussy, Beethoven and two Mozart viola quintets with Timothy Ridout that will also be recorded for Hyperion. Other European appearances include the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Konzerthaus Berlin, and venues in Florence, Bologna and Rome.

The members of the Takács Quartet are Christoffersen Fellows and have been Artists in Residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder. During the summer months the Takács join the faculty at the Music Academy of the West, running an intensive quartet seminar. This season the ensemble begins a new relationship as Visiting Artists at the University of Maryland.

The Takács has recorded for Hyperion since 2005; many recordings are available to stream at https://www.hyperion-streaming.co.uk. In 2021 the Takács won a Presto Music Recording of the Year Award for their recordings of string quartets by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, and a Gramophone Award with pianist Garrick Ohlsson for piano quintets by Beach and Elgar. Their Decca/London recordings have earned three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, three Japanese Record Academy Awards, Disc of the Year at the inaugural BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Ensemble Album of the Year at the Classical Brits.

The Takács Quartet is known for innovative programming. In July 2024 they premiered Kachkaniraqmi by Gabriela Lena Frank, a concerto for solo quartet and string orchestra. Since 2021–22 the ensemble has partnered regularly with bandoneon virtuoso Julien Labro in a program featuring new works by Clarice Assad and Bryce Dessner, commissioned by Music Accord. The group has presented programs with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, poet Robert Pinsky, and the Hungarian folk group Muzsikas.

Awards and recognition include the Wigmore Hall Medal (2014), induction into Gramophone's Hall of Fame (2012), and the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Chamber Music and Song (2011).

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. Early competition successes included First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian (1977), Gold Medals at the Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions (1978), and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition (1978) and the Bratislava Competition (1981). The Quartet made its North American debut tour in 1982. Members of the Takács Quartet are the grateful beneficiaries of an instrument loan by the Drake Foundation, and they are Thomastik-Infeld Artists.