Internationally recognized as one of the world’s foremost quartets, the American String Quartet celebrates its
41st season in 2016–2017. Critics and colleagues hold the Quartet in high esteem and many of today’s leading
artists and composers seek out the Quartet for collaborations. The quartet is known for its performances of
the complete quartets of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, and other composers and for championing
American and contemporary composers. The complete Mozart string quartets on a matched set of
Stradivarius instruments are widely held to set the standard for this repertoire.

Pianist David Westfall maintains an active career as concert pianist, collaborative artist, and teacher. He has
concertized and given master classes throughout the United States, Canada, Spain, Brazil, Germany, and
Serbia. He is an avid chamber musician, and has performed with internationally acclaimed string quartets such
as the American, Chiara, and Jupiter. Dr. Westfall is currently Associate Professor of Piano and Director of the
Instrumental Studies Division at The Hartt School.

The Arthur and Betty Winograd Fund at the Hartt Community Division supports scholarships and financial aid
to encourage, nurture, and develop chamber music playing in pre-college musicians. Arthur Winograd’s
extensive career began in 1946 as the original cellist of the world renowned Juilliard String Quartet. He left
the Juilliard Quartet in 1956 to pursue a career in conducting. From 1964 to 1985, he was conductor and
music director of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Upon his retirement from the symphony, he joined the
chamber music faculty at The Hartt School. Betty Winograd, an accomplished pianist in her own right and
graduate of Juilliard, served for years on the piano faculty of The Hartt School and The Hartt School
Community Division. Betty was also a long time member of the Musical Club of Hartford. Peter Winograd,
son of Arthur and Betty, is the first violinist of the American String Quartet and an alumnus of the Hartt
Community Division.

The Musical Club of Hartford is a non-profit organization well into its second century of existence.
Membership is open to all those who share a love of music, including performers, listeners, and composers,
providing a valuable network for musicians in the Greater Hartford area. Each year the Club presents 12
member-performed concerts, two professional concerts, two musical exploration programs, a concert by
recipients of the Club’s Evelyn Bonar Storrs Piano Scholarships Fund, and a concert by the winners’ of the
Club’s four high school competitions.

PROGRAM

String Quartet  in F minor, Op. 95 “Serioso”    Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)    
I.   Allegro con brio    
II.  Allegretto ma non troppo
III. Allegro assai vivace ma serioso
IV. Larghetto espressivo; Allegretto agitato; Allegro

String Quartet No. 3 in F Major    Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
I.   Allegretto         
II.  Moderato con moto
III. Allegro non troppo
IV. Adagio    —
V.  Moderato

INTERMISSION

Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34    Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
I.   Allegro non troppo    
II.  Andante, un poco adagio
III. Scherzo: Allegro    
IV. Finale: Poco sostenuto - Allegro non troppo - Presto

QUARTET BIOGRAPHY

Internationally recognized as one of the world’s foremost quartets, the American String Quartet celebrates
its 41st season in 2016–2017. Critics and colleagues hold the Quartet in high esteem and many of today’s
leading artists and composers seek out the Quartet for collaborations.

The Quartet is also known for its performances of the complete quartets of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert,
Schoenberg, Bartók, Mendelssohn, and Mozart, as well as all the string quintets of Mozart, Mendelssohn, and
Brahms. The Quartet’s recordings of the complete Mozart string quartets on a matched set of Stradivarius
instruments are widely held to set the standard for this repertoire.

To celebrate its 35th anniversary, the Quartet recorded an ambitious CD, Schubert’s Echo, released by NSS
Music. The program invites the listener to appreciate the influence of Schubert on two masterworks of early
20th-century Vienna, Berg’s dramatic, atonal Quartet Op. 3, and Webern’s visionary Fünf Sätze (Five
Movements), Op. 5.

In addition to quartets by European masters, the American naturally performs quartets by American
composers such as George Whitefield Chadwick, Henry Cowell, Arthur William Foote, Charles Ives, Walter
Piston, and others.

The American also champions contemporary music. The Quartet has commissioned and premiered works by
distinguished American composers Claus Adam, Richard Danielpour, Kenneth Fuchs, Tobias Picker, George
Tsontakis, and Robert Sirota. The Quartet has recorded on the Albany, CRI, MusicMasters, Musical Heritage
Society, Nonesuch, and RCA labels. The Quartet’s discography includes works by Adam, Corigliano,
Danielpour, Dvořák, Fuchs, Prokofiev, Schoenberg, and Tsontakis.

The Quartet’s innovative programming and creative approach to education has resulted in notable
residencies throughout the country. The Quartet continues as quartet in residence at the Manhattan School
of Music (1984–present) and the Aspen Music Festival (1974–present). The ASQ taught in Beijing, China, from
2005 to 2014, and travels widely abroad.

Formed in 1974 when its original members were students at The Juilliard School, the American String Quartet
was launched by winning both the Coleman Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award the same
year.

QUARTET MEMBERS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Peter Winograd joined the American String Quartet in 1990. He gave his first solo public performance at the
age of 11, and at age 17 he was accepted as a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School.
Recognized early as an exceptionally promising young artist, Winograd was a top prize winner in the 1988
Naumburg International Violin Competition. He then made his New York debut to critical acclaim and has
since appeared as a guest soloist with numerous orchestras and in recital across the country and abroad,
including annual collaborative performances with cellist Andrés Díaz at the Florida Arts Chamber Music
Festival. In 2002 Winograd performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Hartford Symphony; his father,
Arthur Winograd, was the featured guest conductor. Winograd has been a member of the violin and chamber
music faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music School (where the American is
Quartet-in-Residence) since 1990. Born into a gifted musical family, Winograd began his studies with his
parents. His mother was a professional pianist, and his father was the founding cellist of the Juilliard Quartet
and a conductor of the Hartford Symphony in Hartford, Connecticut, where Winograd grew up. He holds
bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Juilliard. His wife, violinist Caterina Szepes, is a regular participant in
the Marlboro Festival and a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. His violin is by Giovanni Maria del
Bussetto (Cremona, 1675).

A founding member of the American String Quartet, Laurie Carney holds the distinction of performing
quartets longer than any other woman in this elite field. The ASQ began concertizing while she was still an
undergraduate at Juilliard. Apart from the Quartet, she has performed trios with her husband, cellist William
Grubb, and pianist Anton Nel; duos with violist Michael Tree; and as an ensemble partner to such artists as
Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Salvatore Accardo, Cho-Liang Lin, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Misha Dichter,
Ralph Kirshbaum, Alain Meunier, and Frederica von Stade. Carney's concerto appearances include performing
Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante with the Bournemouth Symphony, Basque National Orchestra, and the Welsh
National Orchestra. She gave the premiere of Gianpaolo Bracali’s Fantasia for violin and piano. Most recently,
Robert Sirota composed his Violin Sonata No. 2 for her, and in addition to performing the premiere last
spring, she will record the work later this season. A faculty artist at the Aspen Music Festival and School since
1974 and the Manhattan School of Music since 1984, Carney has held teaching positions at the Mannes
College of Music, Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, University of Nebraska, University of
Michigan, Shepherd School at Rice University, and the Taos School of Music. Her dedication to the
development of young players brings frequent invitations to offer master classes, most recently in California,
Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, and New Mexico. Carney is a member of a prodigious musical family: her father
was a trumpeter and educator, her mother a concert pianist, and all three siblings are professional violinists.
Her violin is by Carlo Tononi (Venice, 1720).

The Strad magazine hailed violist Daniel Avshalomov as “one of the finest occupants of that chair, both
instrumentally and musically, of any quartet now active.” Avshalomov performs in recitals and collaborations
and as a featured performer and concerto soloist at festivals across the country. Before joining the Quartet,
Avshalomov served as principal violist for the Aspen, Tanglewood, and Spoleto festival orchestras, as well as
for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Opera Orchestra of New York, and American Composers Orchestra. He also was a
founding member of the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble. A frequent guest artist with the Guarneri Quartet, he
has performed with such groups as the Da Camera Society, Marin Music Fest, and La Musica di Asolo. He has
shared the stage with Norbert Brainin (first violinist of the Amadeus Quartet), Misha Dichter, Bruno Giuranna
(a founding member of I Musici), Maureen Forrester, the Juilliard and Tokyo quartets, and the Bolshoi Ballet
(as solo violist). Avshalomov’s articles appear in Notes and Strings; he has edited several viola works for
publication and contributed to ASTA’s Playing and Teaching the Viola. He has been the subject of two articles
in The Strad magazine and one in Classical Pulse. Avshalomov developed a lecture-demonstration, “Inside
Passages,” first presented to the New York Viola Society in 2000. He performed the world premiere of
Giampaolo Bracali’s Concerto per Viola, which RAI has broadcast in Europe, and the American premiere of
Alessandro Rolla’s Esercizio 3. On his CD, Three Generations Avshalomov, with pianists Robert McDonald and
Pamela Pyle, Avshalomov performs works for viola and piano composed by his grandfather, father and
brother. The CD was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Avshalomov has been on the faculty of the
Manhattan School of Music since 1984 and at the Aspen School since 1976. His viola is by Andrea Amati
(Cremona, 1568).

Since his Carnegie Hall debut in 1994, cellist Wolfram Koessel has performed as a chamber musician, recitalist
and soloist throughout the world. The Strad magazine praised his “exceptionally attractive cello playing.” As a
soloist he has performed concertos throughout the United States as well as with Japan’s Osaka Symphony
Orchestra and orchestras in Germany and South America. He also has appeared often with the New York
Metamorphoses Orchestra, which he cofounded in 1994. His collaborations include performances with
legendary tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, distinguished dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, and cellist Yo Yo Ma, among
many others. Koessel also appears with a wide range of ensembles, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
and Trio+ (a group he formed with violinist Yosuke Kawasaki and pianist Vadim Serebryani), which performs
creative and collaborative concerts throughout Japan, the United States, and Canada. Koessel served as music
director of the Mark Morris Dance Group from 2004 to 2008 and has toured extensively with the company
both nationally and internationally, performing in several world premieres. In the fall of 2009, he was the
featured performer in a new dance work, performing Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in C. He resides with his wife,
pianist and writer J. Mae Barizo, and his daughter in Manhattan. His cello is by Giovanni Cavani (Modena,
1917).

Pianist David Westfall maintains an active career as concert pianist, collaborative artist, and teacher. He has
concertized and given masterclasses throughout the United States, Canada, Spain, Brazil, Germany, and
Serbia. He is an avid chamber musician, and has performed with internationally acclaimed string quartets
such as the Jupiter, Chiara, and American. He frequently performs and lectures for music conferences
throughout the United States, and has performed for the past three years for the European Piano Teachers
Association conference held in Novi Sad. He has served on the juries of international competitions, including
the Ricard Viñes International Piano Festival in Lleida, Spain, and the Isidor Bajic Piano Memorial Competition
in Novi Sad, Serbia. He has also served for a number of years on the National Fulbright Screening Committee
in New York. He has also given masterclasses for the World Piano Pedagogy Conference and the Music
Teachers National Association (USA). He has recently given classes the Royal Conservatory in Toronto, the
Royal College of Music in London, Mannheim University of Music and the Performing Arts, and the University
of Texas. He is in residence every summer at the Three Bridges International Chamber Music Festival where
he performs and coaches piano and string ensembles, and also gives classes in piano pedagogy that focus on
teaching gifted young piano students, addressing concepts of movement, sound, and musical style.

Dr. Westfall is a graduate of Texas Christian University, Indiana University and the Juilliard School of Music.
He received his Doctorate in Musical Arts from the Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford, where he is
currently Co-chair of the Keyboard Department and Chair of Accompanying. He has studied with renowned
concert pianists Abbey Simon, Gyorgy Sebok, Luiz de Moura Castro, and and later with Murray Perahia at the
Dartington Festival in England. He also serves as Artistic Director and resident pianist of the South Church
Chamber Music Society in New Britain, Connecticut. He recently toured South Korea where he taught and
performed at major music schools, including Sejong University, Sook Myung Women’s University, Seoul
National University, Sungshin Women’s University, and
Seoul Arts High School.

The Arthur and Betty Winograd Fund at the Hartt Community Division supports scholarships and financial aid to encourage, nurture, and develop chamber music playing in pre-college musicians.  Arthur Winograd’s extensive career began in 1946 as the original cellist of the world renowned Juilliard String Quartet.  He left the Juilliard Quartet in 1956 to pursue a career in conducting.  From 1964 to 1985, he was conductor and music director of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.  Upon his retirement from the symphony, he joined the chamber music faculty at The Hartt School.  Betty Winograd, an accomplished pianist in her own right and graduate of Juilliard, served for years on the piano faculty of The Hartt School and The Hartt School Community Division.  Betty was also a long time member of the Musical Club of Hartford.

The Musical Club of Hartford is a non-profit organization well into its second century of existence. Membership is open to all those who share a love of music, including performers, listeners, and composers, providing a valuable network for musicians in the Greater Hartford area. Each year the Club presents 12 member-performed concerts, two professional concerts, two musical exploration programs, a concert by recipients of the Club’s Evelyn Bonar Storrs Piano Scholarships Fund, and a concert by the winners’ of the Club’s four high school competitions.