‘Year of the American Composer’ to continue with Cassatt String Quartet April 19

‘Year of the American Composer’ to continuewith Cassatt String Quartet April 19April 15, 2005Jaime Winne Alvarez jlwinne@syr.edu

To celebrate the “Year of the American Composer,” the Rose, Jules R. and Stanford S. Setnor School of Music in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts will present the New York City-based Cassatt String Quartet, SU’s quartet-in-residence, April 19 at 8 p.m. The performance is in the Rose and Jules R. Setnor Auditorium, located in Crouse College. It is free and open to the public. Parking is available in Irving Garage.

The program will include the New York premiere of Nicolas Scherzinger’s “Whisper,” Bright Sheng’s “String Quartet No. 4 (Silent Temple)” and Aaron Copland’s “Sextet for String Quartet, Clarinet and Piano,” which will also feature SU Professors Ronald Caravan on clarinet and Fred Karpoff on piano.

Formed in 1985 with the encouragement of the Juilliard Quartet, the Cassatt initiated and was one of the inaugural participants in Juilliard’s Young Artists Quartet Program. Its 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 Cassatt String Quartet features Nicole Johnson on violoncello, Tawnya Popoff on viola and Jennifer Leshnower and Muneko Otani on violins.