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The ensemble projects4cellos / The Four EvangCellists is a cello quartet, which was founded in October 2008. All four members were students at the FRANZ LISTZ University of Music Weimar, Germany, and were educated by Professor Brunhard Böhme and Professor Maria-Luise Leihenseder-Ewald. The name of the quartet developed due to the fact, that the cellists share their forenames with the four evangelists (Matthew, Marc, Luke and John).

projects4cellos are very versatile in their choice of repertoire. Their program includes works originally written for cello quartet and arrangements. And so their musical range extends across various styles and periods, including classical pieces (e.g. serenades and concertos), new music, various dances and folk songs, world music as well as jazz and ragtime. The ensemble has played throughout Germany for years now, its concerts praised by press and public alike. Thanks to their widely varying concert programs The Four EvangCellists enjoy great popularity with young and old. Because of their ever-growing repertoire they can offer topic concerts as well as an increasing number of performances together with selected guest musicians in expanded lineups.

A particular focus in their musical creations projects4cellos see in the interpretation of opera literature. In November 2011 their first CD “cellopera” was published - a collection of opera excerpts arranged for four cellists - with works of Bizet, Mozart, Puccini, Beethoven, Mascagni, Delibes, Humperdinck, Offenbach, Nicolai and Saint-Saëns. Three carefully selected arrangers – Fredo Jung, Ulrike Seifert and Felix Leibbrand – created 19 arrangements from both famous and less well-known operas and received rave reviews.

Numerous digital publications, some of them devoted to jazz, followed for download on common international platforms. In 2012, for example, the EP “Take Five” – together with several guest musicians – was released. Then in May 2013 their second CD “journey” was published. It features pieces and dances from all over the world. The listener is taken on a musical journey accompanied by dances, Chinese folk songs or traditional Celtic pieces. For the first time, pieces and arrangements done by the members can be heard. The album also contains a number of recordings of music by the contemporary composer Wolfram Graf. Two years later, on August 1, 2015, the CD "Tango Brasileiro - Die Vier EvangCellisten spielen Hartlmaier”, consisting uniquely of dances and one ragtime composed by Udo Hartlmaier from Hagen, was released. The recording can be seen as a token of gratitude for the multiannual collaboration towards the composer, whose pieces are extremely popular among all audiences.

The third album "Notturno" followed in August 2016. Twelve selected pieces  between evening and night – from Romanticism, numerous operas, contemporary music and the movies – take their listeners right into the magic world of nightfall. In 2018 celebrated their first decade of music-making with no less than three new releases. In addition to the sheet music and the CD of "Im schönsten Wiesengrunde / Scarborough Fair", "Al Son del Tango" came out: a little compilation of tangos from German composers originally intended for cello quartet. Within the framework of the fifth Hof Cello Festival the ensemble’s fourth album "CELLISM", a collaboration with well-chosen guest musicians, went public. Among them are the international accordionist Harald Oeler and the globally successful jazz singer and frontwoman of the Band De-Phazz, Pat Appleton.

Five years were to pass between the international music festival and the pandemic break until projects4cellos released another album for their 15^th anniversary in 2023. "Verismo" forges a bridge to the very beginnings of the quartet and is dedicated to the music of Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo and Lehár. The veristic themes of the music to be heard have been carefully arranged by the musicians themselves for the most part, but also contain adaptations from Ulrike Seifert, Fredo Jung, Felix Leibbrand and Udo Hartlmaier. Another companion, the outstanding Canadian cellist Ariel Barnes, joins the group for an aria to form a quintet.

Since 2010 The Four EvangCellists have been giving valuable advice and suggestions to future musicians in numerous workshops and school concerts. In 2013 they founded a young, talent promoting music festival called “Hofer Cellotage” (“Hof Cello Days”). In the same year the four musicians became honorary members of the art and music association “Vox coelestis” (e.V.) Weimar. The ensemble had the great privilege to give numerous performances including the „Markgräfliches Opernhaus Bayreuth“, a UNESCO World Heritage, and the International Centre for Music Encounters “Haus Marteau Lichtenberg“. They took part in concerts at the „Porzellanicon Selb“ as well as at the „Bolle Festsäle Berlin“ and in an event of the “Max-Planck-Gesellschaft“. Other prestigious concerts and concert series included the “Staatstheater Meiningen”, the „Rosenthal-Theater Selb“, the “Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie (Landesorchester Nordrhein-Westfalen)” and the “Hofer Symphoniker”, the „Theatre and Orchestra Neubrandenburg/Neustrelitz“, the “Schlosskonzerte Wehr“, the “Bad Zwestener Meisterkonzerte“, the „Bad Schmiedeberger Meisterkonzerte“,  the “Schloss-Konzerte Gartow“ as well as the festivals “Thüringer Orgelsommer“, “THEATERNATUR“, “Kunst & Kultur Kloster Wechterswinkel“, “Dannenberger Frühling“, “Niedermooser Konzertsommer“, “Finsterwalder Kammermusikfestival“, “Internationale Meßdorfer Musikfesttage“, “Classic Nights“ in the convent of Brauweiler and the “Chengdu Jiezi International Youth Music Festival“ in the southern province Sichuan.

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