History
Although the Fine Arts Quartet was founded in 1946, the group's members had begun working together as early as 1939 while playing in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The Quartet's first performance took place in 1940 with Leonard Sorkin, Ben Senescu, Sheppard Lehnhoff, and George Sopkin. Military service in World War II intervened, however, and it was not until 1946, now with the new second violinist Joseph Stepansky, that the Quartet began to rehearse and perform regularly.
The Quartet members have helped nurture many young international ensembles. Their first teaching residency, 1951–1954, was at Northwestern University. In 1963, the Quartet was invited to become Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and its members have been professors there ever since. In recent years, they have also been guest professors at the national music conservatories of Paris and Lyon, as well as at the summer music schools of Yale University and Indiana University. They have appeared as jury members of major competitions such as Evian, Shostakovich, and Bordeaux. Documentaries on the Fine Arts Quartet have appeared on both French and American public television.
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