The Fine Arts Quartet
“one of the gold-plated names in chamber music" (Washington Post), ranks among the most distinguished ensembles in chamber music today, with an illustrious history of performing success and an extensive legacy of over 200 recorded works. Founded in Chicago in 1946, the Quartet is one of the elite few to have recorded and toured internationally for three quarters of a century.

The Quartet's renowned violinists, Ralph Evans (prizewinner in the International Tchaikovsky Competition) and Efim Boico (former concertmaster of the Orchestre de Paris under Barenboim) have performed together for 38 years. They are joined with two eminent musicians: violist Gil Sharon (founder of the Amati Ensemble), and cellist Niklas Schmidt (co-founder of the Trio Fontenay).

Many of the Quartet's latest releases have been selected for inclusion on Grammy® Awards entry lists in the categories "Best Classical Album" and/or "Best Chamber Music Performance" and have received multiple awards and distinctions, among them: “Gramophone award-winner" and "recording of legendary status” (Gramophone Classical Music Guide), “Key Recording/Top Recommendation” (Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music), “Editor’s Choice” (Gramophone Magazine), "Critic's Choice" (American Record Guide), BBC Music Magazine Choice”, "Recording of the Year" [3 times] (MusicWeb International), and a Grammy® Award for producer Steven Epstein (Fauré Quintets with Cristina Ortiz), The Quartet also received the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, given jointly by Chamber Music America and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. The Quartet's latest CDs (Mozart, Dvorak) will be released by Naxos in early 2021. See: Naxos news.

The Quartet members have nurtured many of today's top young international quartets while teaching at the Sorkin International Institute of Chamber Music in Milwaukee and serving as guest professors at major conservatories in Paris, London, New York, Beijing, Hamburg, and music festivals all over the world.

Anna Kreetta Gribajcevic
studied at the Sibelius Academy, the Saarbrücken College of Music and the Academy of Music ‘Hanns Eisler’ Berlin. She won second prize in the BDI Viola Competition in Leverkusen in 1995 and the following year won the Tampere Viola Competition. She has appeared as a recitalist and chamber musician in Europe and the USA, at numerous festivals and as a soloist with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and Berlin Symphony Orchestra. She has given the Finnish premières of many compositions. Anna Kreetta Gribajcevic has been principal violist of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra since 2000 and is a founder member of the Helsinki Festival Orchestra.

Jens Peter Maintz
enjoys an outstanding reputation as a versatile soloist, highly sought-after chamber musician, and committed cello teacher. Originally from Hamburg, he studied with David Geringas and took part in masterclasses with other great cellists such as Heinrich Schiff, Boris Pergamenschikow, Frans Helmerson and Siegfried Palm. He was further influenced by his intensive chamber music study with Uwe-Martin Haiberg and Walter Levin. In 1994 he won first prize in the ARD international Music Competition, which had previously not been awarded to a cellist for 17 years.

He gathered several years of valuable orchestral experience as principal cello of the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin, and travelled the world as a member of the renowned Trio Fontenay. Since 2006 Jens Peter Maintz has been principal cello of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, on the invitation of Claudio Abbado.

His solo career has brought him into contact with conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Herbert Blomstedt, Marek Janowski, Dmitry Kitajenko, Franz Welser-Möst, Reinhard Goebel and Bobby McFerrin. He has appeared as a soloist with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig MDR Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Den Haag Residenzorchester and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Alongside classical repertoire, Jens Peter Maintz has performed numerous works by contemporary composers from Isang Yun to Georg Friedrich Haas.

Since 2004 he has been professor at Berlin University of the Arts, where he teaches an exceptionally successful cello class. Many of his students are prize winners in important international competitions and some hold leading positions in major orchestras. Jens Peter Maintz is in equally great demand as a chamber musician. He is a member of the prestigious “Spectrum Concerts Berlin” concert series, and performs with chamber music partners such as Janine Jansen, Boris Brovtsyn, Torleif Thedéen, Hélène Grimaud, Kolja Blacher, Isabelle Faust, Antoine Tamestit, and also the Artemis, Carmina and Auryn Quartets.

It is now 25 years since he formed the cello duo “Cello Duello” with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt. Together they perform at the world's most eminent festivals, such as the Kronberg Festival, the Cello Biennale Amsterdam and the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival.

For his Sony Classical CD of solo works by Bach, Dutilleux and Kodaly, Jens Peter Maintz was presented with an ECHO-Klassik award. His highly acclaimed recording of Haydn's cello concertos with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen was released on the Berlin Classics label.

Jens Peter Maintz plays the “Ex-Servais” cello made by Giovanni Grancino in 1697.