When 4th Line was founded in 2016, the idea was to spend nice moments together, drinking sparkling wine and playing French horn quartet pieces just for fun. But the hunger for more ambitious work grew.

The 4th Line French horn quartet is made up of former Sibelius Academy students. Today, these women are Finland’s leading female French horn players, all of whom work in Finland’s top orchestras. Tanja Nisonen and Mervi Huttunen work with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Pauliina Koskela with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and Maria Luhtanen is a freelancer currently working with the Finnish National Opera Orchestra.

The quartet’s most important appearances are in 2023 at the Nordic Horn Seminar in Rovaniemi and in 2017 in Berlin, where they had the honour of being part of the programme for Finland’s 100th anniversary. The 4th Line will next perform at the CitQuad curved horn event in Spain in December 2024 and at the Sibbe Live series at the Sibelius Museum in March -25.

4th Line has done important cultural work by bringing to the fore works that have been forgotten, and which definitely deserve to be heard and performed. It has been an interesting journey and their work has expanded the repertoire of the French horn quartet. In 2022, 4th Line released the album “Four Impulsers”, an album of Finnish and Scandinavian music for curved horn quartet. The next recording project is to record works by the composers. The journey continues!

It is challenging to combine the schedules of three different orchestras, in three different cities with family life, but when these women get together the horns blare and the laughter roars, without forgetting the sparkling wine.