The Fine Arts Quartet recording of the two Fauré Piano Quintets with pianist Cristina Ortiz was released by Naxos in June 2009.
See Naxos News story about the recording session . For details on this CD: Naxos.
During the summer of 2009, the Fine Arts Quartet appeared in many of Europe's most renowned festivals: the Naantali Festival, Festival Pablo Casals de Prades, Amalfi Coast Music & Arts Festival, Le Festival Berlioz, Festival Internacional de Música Pau Casals, Festival l'été Musical en Bergerac, Lille's Festival Clef de Soleil, and the Festival de Musique de Pontlevoy.
The Fine Arts Quartet recordings of the complete Bruckner chamber music were released by Naxos in December, 2008.
See Naxos News story about the recording session. For details on this CD: Naxos.
The Fine Arts Quartet recordings of the complete early Beethoven String Quartets Op.18 were released in October 2008 on the Lyrinx label in SACD (Super Audio Compact Disc) format. For details on this CD: SA-CD
Cellist George Sopkin, who founded the Fine Arts Quartet along with Leonard Sorkin in 1946, died on October 28, 2008 at the age of 94. There are obituaries in the Bangor News and in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and a list of Sopkin recordings.
The Fine Arts Quartet was invited to be Quartet-in-Residence at the Stradivari Foundation's annual celebration of stringed instruments and performers in Cremona, Italy, September 26 - October 4, 2008.
The Fine Arts Quartet's Naxos recording, "Four American Quartets", is designated a "BBC MUSIC CHOICE" by BBC Music Magazine in August 2008.
Listen to Podcast: Four American Quartets (Aug 4, 2008) by Raymond Bisha, a Naxos classical music spotlight on the new Fine Arts Quartet recording of four string quartets by American composers: Philip Glass, George Antheil, Bernard Hermann, and Ralph Evans.
The Fine Arts Quartet recording of "Four American Quartets" by Antheil, Herrmann, Glass, Evans, released by Naxos in July 2008, was selected for the 2009 Grammy Awards Entry list in the "Best Classical Album" category. See Naxos News story about the recording session. For details on this CD: Naxos.
The Fine Arts Quartet and artists from the Festival Pablo Casals de Prades performed on a Baltic music festival cruise on-board the luxurious Regent Seven Seas Voyager. In addition to concerts at sea, the cruise, July 15-26, 2008, included visits to Stockholm, Tallinn, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Riga, Gdansk, Copenhagen, Kalmar, Klaipeda, and Szczecin.
During the summer of 2008, the Fine Arts Quartet appeared in some of Europe's most distinguished concert series: the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Amalfi Coast Music & Arts Festival, Les Nuits Musicales du Suquet in Cannes, Le Festival de Quatuors à Cordes du Luberon, Le Festival Clef du Soleil in Lille, and Le Festival de Musique en Bourbonnais.
The Fine Arts Quartet recording of the complete Mendelssohn String Quintets Op.18 and Op.87, released by Naxos in May 2008, was named a Musicweb International "Recording of the Year 2008" and was selected for the 2009 Grammy Awards Entry list in the "Best Classical Album" category. This CD includes the first known recording of Mendelssohn's Minuetto in F-Sharp Minor movement, composed for the Quintet Op.18 but later replaced by a different movement before the Quintet was published. See Naxos News story about the recording session. For details on this CD: Naxos.
During the summer of 2007, the Fine Arts Quartet appeared in many of Europe's most renowned festivals: the Naantali Festival, Festival Pablo Casals de Prades, Festival de Quatuors à Cordes du Luberon, Festival International de Musique de Besançon, Fêtes Musicales de Savoie, Amalfi Coast Music & Arts Festival, Festival de Musique de Menton.
The Fine Arts Quartet recording of the Glazunov Five Novelettes and String Quintet, released by Naxos in March 2007, was named a Musicweb International "Recording of the Year 2007". For details on this CD: Naxos.
The Fine Arts Quartet recordings of complete Schumann String Quartets released by Naxos in December, 2006, was named "one of the very finest chamber-music recordings of the year" by the American Record Guide in 2007 and was selected for the 50th Grammy Awards Entry List (2008) in two categories: "Best Classical Album" and "Best Chamber Music Performance". For details on this CD: Naxos
A major profile of the Fine Arts Quartet by renowned author/journalist Jessica Duchen appears in the December 2006 issue of The Strad Magazine.
Listen to a Wisconsin Public Radio WUWM interview with Fine Arts Quartet first violinist Ralph Evans, November 2006.
The Fine Arts Quartet's live performance of the Mozart Quartet K.464 (3rd & 4th movements) is selected for NPR broadcast (recorded June 3, 2005 at the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego).
During the 2003-4 season, the Fine Arts Quartet gave world premiere performances of Efrem Podgaits's extraordinary quintet, Ex Animo, with guest artist Friedrich Lips, one of the world's foremost bayanists. This Quintet, commissioned by the Fine Arts Quartet, was the first piece Podgaits (born in 1949) had written for the combination of string quartet and bayan-accordion.