Antti Tikkanen – violin
Minna Pensola – violin
Atte Kilpeläinen – viola
Tomas Djupsjöbacka – cello
Meta4, formed in 2001, is one of the internationally most 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. The quartet enjoyed continued success in 2007, when it won the 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 an international breakthrough. Meta4 was selected as a BBC New Generation Artist for 2008–2010 and in 2013 the Fund of Jenny and Antti Wihuri awarded the quartet with a special prize in recognition of its work.
Meta4 performs regularly in key music capitals and concert halls around the world, for example Wiener Konzerthaus, Wigmore Hall and King’s Place in London, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Stockholms Konserthus and Lincoln Center in New York. Furthermore, Meta4 served as the Artistic Director of Oulunsalo Music Festival between 2008 and 2011 and was a quartet-in-residence at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival between 2008 and 2017.The quartet has studied in the European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA) under Hatto Beyerle and Johannes Meissl.
Meta4 has also released three albums on Hänssler Classic (Haydn's String Quartets op. 55, 1-3; Shostakovich's String Quartets 3, 4 & 7 and Bartók's String Quartets 1 & 5), an album of Kaija Saariaho's chamber music works (Ondine) as well as an LP of Sibelius's String Quartet ’Voces Intimae' (Berliner Meister Schallplatten). Their album with Brahms Clarinet Quintet and Gérard Pesson’s Nebenstück together with Reto Bieri was released via ECM Records in 2019. Meta4 are currently receiving great acclaim for their recording of octets by Mendelssohn and Enescu with the Gringolts Quartet, released by BIS records.
The members of Meta4 play distinguished instruments, which include a Stradivarius, kindly on loan from the Finnish Cultural Foundation, a Carlo Bergonzi violin, kindly on loan from Signe and Ane Gyllenberg's Foundation and a cello made by Lorenzo Storioni in Cremona in 1780.
