Combining an international career with their longstanding appointments as Artists in Residence at the University of Colorado Boulder, the members of the Takács perform throughout Europe, the USA, Asia and Australasia, and are Associate Artists at London’s Wigmore Hall. Between 2005 and 2012 the ensemble held a similar position at London’s Southbank Centre. Acclaimed for its interpretations of a wide range of repertoire, the Takács is noted for its innovative projects, which include the commissioning of Stephen Hough’s String Quartet No 1 ‘Les Six rencontres’ and Flow by Nokuthula Ngwenyama, as well as recent quintets by Clarice Assad and Bryce Dessner, written for the Takács and bandoneon virtuoso Julien Labro. The quartet has worked with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Roth and Robert Pinsky in concerts that combined words and music. A project with the Hungarian music ensemble Muzsikás explores the inspiration and sources for Bartók’s musical language. In June 2020 the Takács Quartet was featured in the BBC television series Being Beethoven.

The ensemble’s 2020 Hyperion album of piano quintets by Amy Beach and Edward Elgar with pianist Garrick Ohlsson won a Gramophone Award. In 2021 the quartet’s recording of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn’s string quartets won a Presto Classical Recording of the Year award. In 2014 the Takács was awarded the prestigious Wigmore Hall Medal. In 2012 Gramophone magazine chose the Takács as the first string quartet to be inducted into its Hall of Fame. The ensemble also won the 2011 Chamber Music and Song Award presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London.

The quartet’s multi-award-winning recordings include the late quartets of Beethoven, which in 2006 won Disc of the Year and Chamber awards from BBC Music Magazine, a Gramophone Award and a Japanese Record Academy Award. The ensemble’s recordings of the early and middle Beethoven quartets collected a Grammy, another Gramophone Award, a Chamber Music of America Award and two further awards from the Japanese Recording Academy.

For Hyperion the Takács Quartet has recorded works by Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Smetana, Haydn, Britten, Janáček, Shostakovich, Dvořák, Dohnányi, Elgar, Beach, Ravel, Dutilleux, Hough and Coleridge-Taylor, collaborating with artists including Lawrence Power, Stephen Hough, Marc-André Hamelin and Garrick Ohlsson.

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gábor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gábor Ormai and András Fejér, while all four were students. It first received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Évian, France. The quartet also won the Gold Medal at the 1978 Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition in 1978 and the Bratislava Competition in 1981. The quartet made its North American debut tour in 1982. Edward Dusinberre has been first violinist of the quartet since 1993. Violist Geraldine Walther replaced Roger Tapping in 2005, and Harumi Rhodes joined in 2018 upon the retirement of Károly Schranz. Richard O’Neill became the quartet’s violist in June 2020. Of the original ensemble András Fejér remains.