American String Quartet

Formed in 1974 by four Juilliard students in Manhattan, the American String Quartet quickly established itself as a leading American chamber group. Its early honors included the Coleman and Naumburg Awards, followed by an ongoing appointment as quartet-in-residence at Colorado’s Aspen Music Festival. Since 1984 the ensemble has maintained a residency at the Manhattan School of Music and has also served in guest capacities at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the Peabody Conservatory, and the Taos School of Music.

The quartet’s itinerary has encompassed every U.S. state and numerous international engagements. It has appeared throughout Asia, undertaken multiple tours of South America, broadcast on the BBC, and presented complete Beethoven cycles in both Israel—visited three times—and Mexico. Cycles remain central to its programming: the group has recorded the complete Mozart quartets and has presented the full cycles of Bartók, Schubert, Schoenberg, and Beethoven in concert.

Contemporary repertoire has likewise figured prominently. The quartet gave the world premieres of Richard Danielpour’s String Quartet No. 4 and Curt Cacioppo’s A Distant Voice Calling; in 2016 it collaborated with novelist Salman Rushdie on Paul Cantelon’s work for narrator and string quartet, drawn from Rushdie’s novel The Enchantress of Florence.

Recordings have appeared principally on the MusicMasters and Nimbus labels. In 2018 the ensemble issued American Romantics—containing music by Dvořák, Barber, and Robert Sirota—on its own imprint. At that time the members were violinists Peter Winograd and Laurie Carney, violist Daniel Avshalomov, and cellist Wolfram Koessel.