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Within a decade of forming, the Quatuor Ébène transformed from a talented but youthful and virtually unknown string quartet to a highly respected ensemble with a prestigious recording deal and a touring schedule that included regular performances at major concert venues. Its dabbling into crossover repertory along the way has hardly hurt its rise, and its ability to vocalize on occasion has also added to its popularity and uniqueness.

The Quatuor Ébène formed in 1999 when the players were students at the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory. The founding members of the ensemble were: Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure, violins; Mathieu Herzog, viola; Raphaël Merlin, cello. In 2015, Adrien Boisseau took over the violist's chair from Herzog, who left to do more conducting. Boisseau was replaced by Marie Chilemme in 2017. The ensemble remained relatively little known until capturing first prize at the 2004 ARD International Competition in Munich. Groundbreaking as that was, the Quatuor Ébène added icing to the cake the following year with the 2005 Belmont Prize from the Forberg-Schneider Foundation. In 2006, the quartet performed as part of the BBC's "New Generation Artists" scheme. That same year, it made its first recording, a disc of three Haydn quartets, on the Mirare label. From 2007, the Quatuor Ébène has regularly toured Europe, the U.S., and Canada. In 2008, the ensemble made its first recording under a new association with Virgin Classics, a disc of the quartets by Debussy, Fauré, and Ravel that would go on to receive the 2009 Gramophone award for Record of the Year.

It is the Quatuor Ébène's classical side that has earned it its greatest successes, especially in performances of works by Schubert, Brahms, Borodin, Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev, Bartók, and scores of others, but the crossover fare it performs has drawn much acclaim for its imagination and craftsmanship. The crossover music performed is typically in arrangements made by the Quatuor Ébène players, arrangements frequently sourced in film music. The group's take on the score from Pulp Fiction and Philadelphia, are two examples of more popular crossover hits. Quatuor Ébène's first all-crossover album was issued by Virgin Classics in 2010, a disc that featured arrangements of such numbers as Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Streets of Philadelphia, with additional artists Natalie Dessay, Richard Héry, and others. In 2020, Quatuor Ébène released a complete set of Beethoven's string quartets, titled Beethoven Around the World, launching its 21-country tour of the same name to celebrate Beethoven's 250th birthday. ~ Robert Cummings

Violist Antoine Tamestit is among Europe's most recognizable players of his instrument. He is especially noted for his wide chamber music repertory, stretching from the Baroque to contemporary music. His recordings are a varied lot, covering music from the Baroque era to contemporary works. In 2024, he performed the viola concerto Viola Saga on the album Joe Hisaishi in Vienna.

Tamestit was born in Paris on July 11, 1979. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris in the class of Jean Sulem and went on for further training in chamber music at Yale University with Jesse Levine and the Tokyo String Quartet and in solo music with violist Tabea Zimmermann. Several major competition wins between 2000 and 2004, including those at the Maurice Vieux International Viola Competition, the William Primrose International Viola Competition, and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, helped launch Tamestit's career. From 2004 to 2006, he was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, and in 2006, he received the coveted Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. He made his solo recording debut in 2007 on the Ambroisie label with the album Chaconne.

Tamestit's concert hall appearances have taken him to leading world venues, including the Musikverein in Vienna, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Carnegie Hall in New York. He has performed with the likes of the London Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, playing contemporary works, including several world premieres in addition to standards of the viola repertory, such as Berlioz's Harold in Italy and Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, K. 364. Tamestit is perhaps even more familiar as a chamber music player. He has appeared at major festivals such as those in Davos and Lucerne, Switzerland, and his partners have included pianist Nicholas Angelic, violinist Gidon Kremer, and the violin-and-cello duo of Gautier and Renaud Capuçon. Tamestit is a member of the Zimmermann Trio.

He has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, BIS, Naïve, and a variety of other labels. Tamestit is the dedicatee of a viola concerto by Jörg Widmann, which he premiered in 2015 with the Orchestre de Paris and recorded in 2018 for Harmonia Mundi with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding. On his 2021 album of Brahms' viola sonatas, he was joined by pianist Cédric Tiberghien. Later that year, he was heard with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin on a recording of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. Tamestit performed on albums of chamber music by Telemann, Mozart, and Schumann in the early 2020s. In 2024, he was heard in the viola concerto Viola Saga by film composer Joe Hisaishi on the Deutsche Grammophon album Joe Hisaishi in Vienna. By that time, his recording catalog comprised more than 25 items. Tamestit taught from 2007 to 2013 at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne and has taught at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) and the Kronberg Academy. ~ James Manheim