The Maat Saxophone Quartet (Maat) plays groundbreaking music and tells stories that move people. They think, play, and color outside the lines of the classical saxophone quartet. With innovative programs in which music merges with other art forms, Maat creates space for urgent themes. As four Portuguese musicians based in the Netherlands, they speak one musical language and connect two cultures. Maat is curious, open, and takes risks.

Maat is the winner of the most prestigious classical music competition in Portugal, the Prémio Jovens Músicos (2018), and of the Dutch Classical Talent Award (2022). In the 2025/2026 season, Maat has been nominated as ECHO Rising Star by Philharmonie de Paris, Gulbenkian Foundation and Casa da Música.

Maat highlights the voices of living artists from diverse art forms and backgrounds. They have commissioned more than 20 new works from composers, and collaborate with prominent organizations in the Dutch cultural landscape, including AYA Dance Theatre, Oorkaan, and Theatre Na de Dam.

In 2020, they released their debut CD, “Ciudades.” According to De Luister magazine, "we can be brief about the playing of Maat: promising, devilishly good, and heavenly contagious in all works.” In 2023, they released their second CD, “Renascer,” featuring Portuguese guitarist António Carlos Costa, combining traditional Fado and contemporary music. Both CDs were released under the label 7 Mountain Records Amsterdam.

In the season 2023/2024 Maat premiered their own multidisciplinary production “No one is too small” over the topic of climate change, which was nominated as one of the best “green performances” in the Netherlands in 2023 by GleveriD. In 2024 they release their third CD “No one is too small” on 7 Mountain Records.

Maat aims to reinvent the saxophone quartet and to present it the most diverse lineups and genres. The 2025/2026 season marks an important milestone: Maat will debut in Europe’s major concert halls during the ECHO Rising Stars tour, present the virtual opera Metamorphosis internationally, and go on tour in Brazil. A new work by Johan de Meij for saxophone quartet and wind orchestra will have its world premiere, and Maat will create a new children’s production in collaboration with the Philharmonie Luxembourg.