Four of a Kind

Takács Quartet is a world-class ensemble based in the shadow of the Flatirons

By Matt Maenpaa

What Grammy-winning musical group, residing at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is celebrating its 50th anniversary?

The answer may surprise you, especially if you are unfamiliar with the state of contemporary classical music in America. When not making award-winning recordings or touring the planet, the Takács Quartet, one of the most honored string quartets in the world, calls Boulder home.

“We always loved Boulder for its combination of many things. We adored that there was a huge, highly sophisticated audience base, the university has been supporting us from the very beginning and that support has only grown in these past decades,” says Takács co-founder and cellist András Fejér. “And finally, this is just the place to return to in between tours all over the world. It’s ideal, really.”

Richard O’Neill, the group’s violist and newest member, concurs. “I’ll have to say, with the pandemic, the access to nature and all the trails saved my psyche. And it’s such an amazing, beautiful place to live.”

The Quartet was formed by four students at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary in 1975. The group’s founders were Gábor Takács-Nagy, first violin; Károly Schranz, second violin; Gábor Ormai on viola, and Fejér on cello. In 1983, the group became the quartet-in-residence at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Today, Fejér is joined by Edward Dusinberre, first violin; Harumi Rhodes, second violin; and O’Neill on viola. Each player has achieved much individually as well, bringing a diverse set of musical skills to their work together. 

Dusinberre, originally from England, joined the Quartet in 1993. He is a published author who explored the challenge of playing Beethoven in “Beethoven for a Later Age: The Journey of a String Quartet.” Rhodes, who joined the group in 2018, is originally from New Jersey, and notched an extensive solo career before joining Takács. 

Fejér came from a musical family, playing cello by age seven—as his cellist and conductor father couldn’t stand the idea of the noise of violin practice. And O’Neill hails from a small town near Seattle. He recalls listening to Takács as a child, dreaming of playing at that level, a dream that came true in in 2020, when he joined the group.

The group won a Grammy for its 2003 recording of Beethoven’s string quartets and has garnered a slew of additional trophies for its work. Together, the players have explored the full spectrum of the string quartet repertoire, including the iconic compositions of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart. They are fully conversant with the modern quartet literature, recording an award-winning set of Bartok’s quartets in 1998.

In addition, the Quartet commissions new pieces from contemporary composers. They recently debuted Clarice Assad’s “Clash” for string quartet and bandoneon (an instrument akin to a button accordion), and they continue to premiere new work.

“I definitely think—at least in our programming—we have explored a lot of composers over time, especially in the last few seasons,” O’Neill says. “We had some really exciting commissions from Gabriela Lena Frank, from Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama, from Stephen Hough, and now this piece with Clarice Assad. We have been exploring a lot of pieces of our time, from people who are still living.”

Clearly, not idle, they perform 90 concerts a year. In 2025 alone, the group travels to South Korea, Japan, Australia (premiering a new piece by Cathy Milliken for narrator and quartet), London, Barcelona, Budapest, Milan and the alliterative Basel, Bath and Bern. Back home, they travel North America from New York to Vancouver with stops in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., La Jolla, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Tucson, Portland and Princeton.

Throughout its existence, the Quartet’s history is marked by a steady cycle of performers. How has the group maintained its identity through the personnel changes?

“One of the most compelling features when I was outside the group listening as a sort of a nerdy teenager, is that the quartet has such a liveliness and commitment to making music that’s very human,” O’Neill says. “What I really loved about all the Takács recordings was this commitment and almost risk-taking to the music-making—that the goal wasn’t perfection, the goal was to be completely committed to make the music as vivid and alive as possible.”

For more information, visit takacsquartet.com or @takacs_quartet.