The Fitzwilliam String Quartet   Lucy Russell   violin Jonathan Sparey   violin Alan George   viola Andrew Skidmore   'cello

Founded in 1968 by four Cambridge undergraduates, the Fitzwilliam was one of the first of a long line of distinguished quartets to have emerged under the guidance of Sidney Griller at the Royal Academy of Music. They originally became well known through their close personal association with Dmitri Shostakovich, who befriended them following a visit to York to hear them play. He entrusted them with the Western premières of his last three quartets, and before long they had become the first ever group to perform and record all fifteen - complete cycles were given in a number of major centres, including London, New York, and Montréal. These achievements secured for them a long term contract with Decca, which embraced some byways of late Romantic repertoire - including Franck, Delius, Borodin, and Sibelius - before they embarked on a Beethoven cycle. Their recordings have gained many international awards, including the very first Gramophone Award for chamber music, in 1977. Their Shostakovich set (recently re-released) was included by the same publication in their “Hundred Greatest-ever Recordings” in November 2005. A world-wide concert schedule has taken them across Europe (including USSR/Russia), North America, Africa, and the Far East.