Cassatt Quartet

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The Cassatt Quartet celebrates the 19th Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, performing works by Vineet Shende, Lawren Brianna Ware, Nina Shekhar, Dylan Schneider, and Daniel Godfrey, in collaboration with guitarist Eliot Fisk.

Hailed for their “mighty rapport and relentless commitment” (Jay Harvey Upstage, 2021), the Cassatt String Quartet  has performed across the world to critical acclaim since its founding in 1985, with appearances at Alice Tully Hall,  Weill Recital Hall, Tanglewood Music Center, the Kennedy Center, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Centro National  de las Artes, Maeda Hall, and Beijing’s Central Conservatory. The Cassatts have performed on the matched quartet  of Stradivarius instruments at the Library of Congress; and, as resident quartet at the University of Buffalo, three complete Beethoven String Quartet cycles.

The Quartet’s upcoming projects include major performances, premieres, and recordings of works by Daniel S.  Godfrey, Tania León, and Shirish Korde; collaborations with Ursula Oppens, Eliot Fisk, Oskar Espina Ruíz, Haim  Avitsur, and Narek Arutyunian; hometown concerts in the New York area; and appearances at Music Mountain,  Treetops Chamber Music Society, Maverick Concerts, and Jordan Hall.

Alex Ross has named the Cassatt Quartet’s recordings three times in his “10 Best Classical Recordings” feature in  The New Yorker Magazine. The group’s discography, which includes over forty recordings, spans the Koch, Naxos,  New World, Point, CRI, Tzadik, and Albany labels. They have been featured on NPR’s “Performance Today,”  WGBH Boston, WQXR and WNYC of New York, Canada’s CBC Radio, and Radio France.

The Cassatt Quartet is deeply committed to nurturing young musicians, and has given classes for composers and  performers at the American Academy in Rome; the Toho School in Tokyo; the Bowdoin International Music  Festival; Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and Syracuse Universities; and the University of Pennsylvania. The CSQ is  in residence annually at the Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music in Vinalhaven, Maine and at Cassatt in  the Basin!, an annual educational residency in Odessa, Texas.

Named for the Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, the quartet consists of violinists Muneko Otani and Jennifer  Leshnower; violist Rosemary Nelis; and cellist Gwen Krosnick.