The violinists Gabor Takacs-Nagy and Karoly Schranz with the violist Gabor Ormai and the cellist Andres Fejer were all students in Budapest, Hungary, at the Music Academy, when they formed the string quartet Takacs in 1975. Karoly Schwartz was the final addition as the other three had previously performed as a trio.
After playing together for a year or two they were the winners of the Critic’s Prize and the First Prize at the International String Quartet Competition that was held in Evian, France. This brought them to the attention of an international audience and led to them winning several other competitions that included the 1978 Budapest String Quartet Competition, the 1979 Bordeaux and Plymouth Competitions and the 1981 Bratislava Competition.
In 1982 they gave their first tour of North America and the following year they made the decision to relocate to the United States where they became the quartet-in-residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
After ten years in the United States Gabor Takacs-Nagy left the quartet and was succeeded by Edward Dusinberre in 1993. The following year the violist Roger Tapping became another replacement after Gabor Ormai was diagnosed with terminal cancer and sadly died in 1995.
After the line-up changed they recorded several albums which all met with success. These were the complete Beethoven quartet cycle, Borodin’s quartets, Bartok’s six quartet cycle and Smetana’s quartets.
Roger Tapping left the quartet in 2005 in order to devote more time to his family. This led to him taking up teaching and has recently been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory where he teaches chamber music.
Roger was replaced by the Principal Violist of the San Francisco Sympony Orchestra, Geraldine Walther in 2005 and that same year they took on the position of Associate Artists at the South Bank Centre.
In 2007 they appeared at Carnegie Hall with Philip Seymour Hoffman in the production Everyman. They have also accompanied the poet Robert Pinsky on a tour of the United States.
In 2010 they started work with the playwright David Morse and the Colorado Shakespeare Theatre on the production about the latter part of Beethoven’s life entitled Quartet.
Their studio performances aside from the ones listed above have included CDs of Franz Schubert’s string quartets “Rosamunde” and “Death and the Maiden” and Brahms String Quartet No. 2, Op. 51 and their total list of recordings to date in 2011 is sixteen.
Aside from their work at the University of Colorado at Boulder the quartet also attend the Guildhall School of Music as the Visiting Quartet and hold summer residencies at the MusicAcademy of the West, Santa Barbara and Aspen Festival.
Winning several awards during their time together they have received a Gramophone Award for their Bartok: The Six String Quartets, Grammy Award for Best Chamber Performance for their Beethoven quartet cycle and a Grammy Award nomination for Brahms String Quartet No.2.
They were honoured in 2010 when they were recognised by the Faculty Assembly at the University of Colorado at Boulder for their “Excellence in Research and Creative Work”. In 2011 they were the recipients of the Royal Philharmonic Society Award For Chamber Music and Song in the UK and also in 2011 they were honoured by Hungary when they received The Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit.
Sources:
- http://www.takacsquartet.com/
- http://www.takacsquartet.com/press_group.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tak%C3%A1cs_Quartet
- http://music.colorado.edu/departments/strings/
- http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/a.asp?a=A1355&name=takacs
- http://cupresents.org/default/index.cfm?action=results&category=TAKACS