Atrium was the first Russian quartet to win victory at two major international competitions. In 2003 the orchestra won 1st prize and the Audience Award at the IX International Quartet Competition in London. In July 2007 the jury of the V International String Quartet Competition in Bordeaux unanimously awarded the Atrium quartet its Grand Prix and the Société Générale Bank Prize. 
The Atrium string quartet was founded in 2000 by students of the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire who had studied under Professor Iosif Levinzon, a cellist with the renowned Taneyev Quartet. The ensemble was the principal guest quartet of The Netherlands Academy of String Quartets, where its members trained under Stefan Metz. The quartet’s musicians completed their postgraduate studies at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin under Professor Eberhard Feltz. The Quartet has also been coached by famous musicians from the Alban Berg Quartet, Vermeer Quartet, by Marc Danel. The quartet has won at international competitions in Moscow, Cremona and Weimar. 
Atrium currently appears at numerous music festivals including the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Stars of the White Nights in St Petersburg, festivals in Schwetzingen, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Bad Kissingen, Davos and Lucerne. 
The Quartet has performed with such eminent musicians as violist Richard Young of the Vermeer Quartet, pianists Brigitte Engerer and Jean-Bernard Pommier, cellist Antonio Meneses. 
In 2013 Atrium became the first ensemble in the history of chamber music to present all fifteen quartets by Shostakovich in just one day. This feat of endeavour was celebrated by audiences in Russia, Iceland, France and Japan. Next season the quartet will continue the series in Germany, The Netherlands and the USA. 
Engagements for the ensemble this season include tours and master-classes in the USA and The Netherlands in addition to concerts in Berlin, London, Hamburg, St Petersburg and festivals in Finland, Germany and China. Also this season, to mark one hundred and seventy-five years since the birth of Tchaikovsky, the quartet will be performing a programme including all of the great composer’s chamber opuses. The first series of concerts with this programme was held in Berlin in April 2015. 
The ensemble’s discography includes recordings of quartets by Mozart, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven released on the labels EMI Classics, Zig-ZagTerritoires and RCM. These recordings were named “Discs of the Month” by leading music publications Gramophoneand Luister. 
The musicians have also recorded four quartets by contemporary Spanish composer Jordi Cervelló (Columna Musica). The maestro dedicated his most recent string quartet St Petersburg (2011) to the musicians of Atrium. 
Currently the quartet’s members live and work in Berlin. The musicians perform instruments produced by Italian craftsmen – violins made by Ferdinando Gagliano (1780) and Paolo Castello (1770), a viola by Lorenzo Carcassi (1775) and a cello by Giovanni Batista Cerruti (1798).