CASSATT QUARTET
& STEVEN BECK

Cassatt Quartet and Steven Beck, piano

This concert will include the Maine premier of Joan Tower’s string quartet To Jeff, with Love, written for the Cassatt Quartet

Joan Tower: To Jeff, with Love and Love Letter
Victoria Bond: New York Nocturne
a work by Cody Forrest
Daniel Sonnenberg: 11-Minute Fantasy
Shirish Korde: Vak
Crystal LaPoint: Eulogy

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, the season features Joan Tower’s String Quartet No. 7, premiered at Maverick Concerts in September 2025 and presented again at the Cassatt Quartet’s 40th anniversary celebration at Merkin Hall, NYC, on October 15, 2026. The anniversary year also includes a new piano quintet by Victoria Bond, inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting Skyscraper, created in collaboration with pianist Magdalena Stern-Baczewska.

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

The members of the Cassatt Quartet are violinists Muneko Otani and Laura Jean Goldberg ; violist Amy Galluzzo; and cellist Yi Qun Xu. 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.

Pianist Steven Beck has recently appeared with the orchestras of Austin, Princeton, and Chattanooga, been heard in chamber music in Chicago, and Oklahoma City, and repeated his annual Christmas Eve performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Bargemusic, which has become a New York institution.

As a soloist Mr. Beck has performed with the New York Philharmonic and the National Symphony and has appeared at Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress; summer concerts have been at the Aspen Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, and Lincoln Center Out of Doors. As an orchestral musician he has played with the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, and Orpheus.

An experienced performer of new music, Steven Beck has premiered works by Charles Wuorinen and Fred Lerdahl. He can be heard on over 40 CDs, including the first complete recording of George Walker’s piano sonatas, for Bridge Records. Mr. Beck is a member of the Knights, the Talea Ensemble, Quattro Mani, and the Da Capo Chamber Players. He is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the Sewanee Summer Music Festival. A Steinway Artist, he is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he now teaches orchestral piano.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.

Run Time: 60 minutes, with no intermission.