The Pro Arte Quartet was founded by conservatory students in Brussels in 1912. Shortly
thereafter, they became the Court Quartet to Queen Elizabeth of Belgium before touring
Europe in 1919. In 1926, the quartet made their debut in New York, and began touring the
United States. On one of these tours, in May of 1940, the quartet was performing in Madison,
Wisconsin when Nazi forces invaded Belgium. The University of Wisconsin offered the quartet
a permanent campus home in response, and thereafter the University of Wisconsin Pro Arte
residency came into being, the first such residency at a major American university. In 1944,
Rudolph Kolisch took up leadership of the Pro Arte Quartet and became a professor in the
School of Music. In the late 1950s, the rest of the quartet likewise joined the School of
Music faculty in addition to functioning as artists-in-residence. The Pro Arte Quartet
celebrated its centennial in 2012, and the residency at University of Wisconsin-Madison
continues to this day.
