Cassatt String Quartet – Visiting Artist Series

As part of the Visiting Artist Series the Williams College Department of Music presents Cassatt String Quartet on Wednesday, November 12 at 7:30 p.m., in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall on the college campus. This event is free and open to the public.

Cassatt String Quartet presents an exciting program: W.A. Mozart: String Quartet in E-flat, K. 428; Joan Tower: String Quartet No. 7; and Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, op. 44.

Hailed for its “mighty rapport and relentless commitment,” the Cassatt String Quartet has performed throughout the world for four decades, with appearances at Alice Tully Hall and 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 Cassatt Quartet – founded in 1985 – now joyfully celebrates its 40th year with a busy 2025-2026 calendar of major performances, collaborations, and teaching. Their anniversary schedule includes performances in their hometown of New York City and across the U.S.; concerts, masterclasses, and workshops at teaching institutions such as Columbia, Fordham and Texas Tech Universities, Bennington, Bowdoin, Hobart and William Smith and Williams Colleges, and a new CSQ residency at the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music; and a CD release of music by Daniel Strong Godfrey, featuring collaborations with guitarist Eliot Fisk, cellist Nicole Johnson, and pianist Ursula Oppens. In proud Cassatt Quartet fashion, this season and the years ahead will center as well around the premieres and championing of important CSQ commissions, with particular attention to the music of great American women composers: these include Joan Tower’s String Quartet No. 7, debuted at Maverick Concerts in September 2025; a new string quartet by Laura Kaminsky; and a piano quintet by Victoria Bond.

They continue their residencies with Cassatt in the Basin in Texas and the Seal Bay Festival of Contemporary American Music in Maine.

The members of the Cassatt Quartet are violinists Muneko Otani and Jennifer Leshnower; violist Emily Brandenburg; and cellist Gwen Krosnick. The Quartet is named for Mary Cassatt, the great painter who – in addition to being the only American to exhibit in Paris alongside the Impressionists – did devoted, lifelong work in support of women’s equality and right to vote.

Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall