Founded in 2001, Meta4 is one of Finland’s most successful string quartets. The ensemble’s international career took off after winning the Dmitri Shostakovich Competition in Moscow in 2004, where they also received a special prize for the best Shostakovich interpretation. In 2007, Meta4 won the Joseph Haydn Competition in Vienna and later that year was awarded the Finnish State Prize (Suomi Prize) in recognition of its international success. Meta4 was part of the BBC New Generation Artists scheme from 2008 to 2010 and received an award from the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation in 2013. The quartet served as principal guest ensemble of Jyväskylä Sinfonia from 2022 to 2024.
Meta4 performs actively around the world. Recent appearances include Wiener Konzerthaus, Wigmore Hall and King’s Place in London, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Stockholm Concert Hall, and Lincoln Center in New York. In Finland, the quartet has served as Artistic Director of the Oulunsalo Soi Festival (2008–2011) and as the resident quartet at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival (2008–2017). Meta4 studied at the European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA) with Hatto Beyerle and Johannes Meissl among their principal mentors.
The quartet is also an active recording ensemble. On Hänssler Classic, they have released Haydn’s String Quartets Op. 55 Nos. 1–3, which received the prestigious Echo Klassik Award, as well as Shostakovich’s String Quartets Nos. 3, 4 & 7, which won an Emma Award and was named Recording of the Year by Yle, and Béla Bartók’s String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5. Their recordings also include Kaija Saariaho’s chamber music on Ondine and Sibelius’s String Quartet Voces Intimae on LP (Berliner Meister Schallplatten). In 2019, they released an album on ECM with clarinettist Reto Bieri featuring Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet and Gérard Pesson’s Nebenstück. Their latest releases on BIS include Octets (2020), recorded with the Gringolts Quartet featuring works by Mendelssohn and Enescu, and Oceano (2021) with chamber music by Sebastian Fagerlund. Their most recent recording, Tales from Norway featuring works by Krishna Nagarajan, was released in spring 2022 on Challenge Classics and was nominated for an Emma Award for Best Classical Album.
The members of the quartet perform on instruments including a Stradivarius violin owned by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, a violin built in Helsinki in 2025 by Elina Kaljus, an Italian viola from the 18th century, and a cello made by Lorenzo Storioni in 1780.
