Cassatt String Quartet gives Nov. 8 concert in Barnes Hall Auditorium

On Friday, Nov. 8, at 8 p.m., Ensemble X presents the Cassatt Quartet in Barnes Hall, with support from the Cornell Council for the Arts. The concert is free and open to the public.

The Cassatt String Quartet

Hailed as one of America's outstanding young ensembles, the Manhattan-based Cassatt String Quartet has performed throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Formed in 1985, the quartet is celebrated for its commitment to American music and for its tireless leadership as teachers in residencies at the Henry Street Music School in New York, the University of Pennsylvania and Syracuse University.

Among the works the four will offer in this special guest concert is Cornell Professor Steven Stucky's quartet Nell'ombra, nella luce ("In Shadow, In Light"), a work described by Paul Griffiths in The New York Times as having "far more light than shadow in it and great arcs of tensely radiant harmony, beautifully imagined for the medium." According to Stucky, it is "based on simple oppositions between 'bright' and 'dark' musics -- between music of high register, forceful gesture, clear harmony, optimistic tone on the one hand, and of low register, mysterious manner and denser, less clear harmony on the other."

Melinda Wagner's Elegy, which was dedicated to the Syracuse Society for New Music, is cast in one movement and "follows the curve of a simple arch." It was first performed Jan. 21, 1997, by the Cassatt String Quartet at Merkin Concert Hall in New York.

For the second half of the program, Cornell's own Xak Bjerken joins the quartet for Brahms' great Quintet for Piano and Strings in F Minor, op. 34.

Members of the Cassatt String Quartet include violinists Muneko Otani and Jennifer Leshnower, violist Tawnya Popoff and cellist Caroline Stinson. Formed in 1985 with the encouragement of the Juilliard Quartet, the Cassatt members initiated and were the inaugural participants in Juilliard's Young Artists Quartet Program. Their numerous awards include a Tanglewood Chamber Music fellowship, the Wardwell Chamber Music Fellowship at Yale, First Prizes at the Fischoff and Coleman Chamber Music Competitions, two top prizes at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, the 1995 CMA/ASCAP First Prize Award for Adventurous Programming and a 1996 recording grant from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. The quartet takes its name from the celebrated American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt.

Last year marked the Cassatt Quartet's inaugural season as quartet-in-residence at New York's Henry Street Music School. It also continue residencies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and at Syracuse University, where the members have created the Louis Krasner Graduate String Quartet Program for the training of young, professionally oriented string quartets. In addition, they hold summer residencies at New York's Bang On A Can Festival and the Seal Bay Festival in Maine.

The quartet premiered several works last season exploiting the medium in unusual ways: Lisa DeSpain's Jazz Quartet to be performed with the Buglisi-Foreman Dance Company at New York's Joyce Theater, Kevin Beaver's Quartet with Soprano for the Brooklyn Friends of Music, along with a new quartet by Jay Reise. Upcoming recordings of new works written for the Cassatt include a CD of string quartets by Daniel S. Godfrey, Ezra Laderman's Quartets Nos. 6, 7 and 8 on the Albany label, and Lawrence Dillon's Bassoon Quintet on the New World label. The Cassatt has recorded for the New World, Point, Albany, Tadzik and CRI labels.