Meta4
String Quartet Meta4 Joins the Roster
We are thrilled to welcome Meta4 to our roster. Formed in 2001, Meta4 is one of the most internationally successful Finnish string quartets. In 2004 it won the first prize in the International Shostakovich Quartet Competition in Moscow, and was also awarded a special prize for best Shostakovich interpretation. In 2007 it won first prize in the International Joseph Haydn Chamber Music Competition in Vienna. Later that year the Finnish Minister of Culture awarded Meta4 with the annual Finland Prize in recognition of its international breakthrough. Meta4 was a BBC New Generation Artist for 2008–2010.
Meta4 performs regularly in key music capitals and concert halls around the world, served as the Artistic Director of Oulunsalo Music Festival between 2008 and 2011, and has been a quartet-in-residence at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival since 2008. They have released three recordings on Hänssler Classics: Haydn’s String Quartets op. 55 1–3 (2009), which received an Echo Klassik Award; Shostakovich’s String Quartets 3, 4 & 7 (2012), which received the 2012 Record of the Year award from the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE as well as the Emma prize (the Finnish Grammy) in the category of Classical Album of the Year; and Bartók’s String Quartets 1 & 5, released in 2014. The quartet has also released an album of Kaija Saariaho’s chamber music works (Ondine, 2013) and Sibelius’s String Quartet Voces Intimae (Berliner Meister Schallplatten, 2013).