How String Quartets Find New Members

By Laurence Vittes | From the July-August 2024 issue of Strings Magazine

When a string quartet decides to change any of its players, it will face a process that is vital to its future. How to identify a pool of candidates? What criteria to use to determine who might make the cut? How are the candidates interviewed, and how does the quartet go about getting to know them? How long is the process? What are the challenges, and the rewards, of adapting to a new member?

When two longtime American string quartets based in New York announced a change of violist in April, they used two very different approaches to finding a new player. Rosemary Nelis decided to leave the Cassatt String Quartet last November to focus on other projects, and the remaining trio played and taught alongside six candidates before choosing Emily Brandenburg, previously violist of the Eykamp String Quartet, as their new member. When Daniel Avshalomov left the American String Quartet after 48 years, the quartet knew they wanted Matthias Buchholz to step into the role. A one-time member of the Ridge and Heine quartets and principal viola of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Buchholz had recently retired after teaching at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. I talked to the Cassatt Quartet, Avshalomov, and Buchholz about their experiences.

The Cassatt Quartet Search

For the Cassatts, there was a noticeable difference in violist profile other than musical: Brandenburg was 38 weeks pregnant—due in two weeks—when she became a candidate. “When they originally asked me to audition,” she tells me, “I accepted, and then became hesitant because this is my second child. I spoke with them honestly and openly about trying to juggle playing in a quartet and being a mom. I declined their offer to audition and then, much to my surprise, because I just haven’t found this much in our industry, they were supportive of me being both a mom and a string quartet player.”

In fact, violinists Muneko Otani and Jennifer Leshnower had both had children while in the Cassatt Quartet. They encouraged Emily to “audition, but not audition. They said, ‘Play some concerts with us. If we’re all interested, then we can talk, but just come play, and let’s not have any pressure.’ And things started to feel good, and playing started to mesh, and ideas started to come.” They played Beethoven, Florence Price’s first string quartet, Victoria Bond’s Blue and Green Music, and Joan Tower’s piano quartet.

Cellist Gwen Krosnick had auditioned for four quartets and gotten into two of them, but this audition process with the Cassatt was her first time being on the other side. She discovered part of the selection process is more about instinct than concrete requirements. “It’s more complicated and layered and intense than I ever could have imagined. We’ve been doing it in the middle of a normal season, playing with guest violas since November. When I joined, I thought, ‘This group already exists, they already have whole lives, they’re fully formed.’ And I thought I could bring my own fully developed voice and point of view and value system and skill set—and also things that I’m not so good at. Somehow the composite of all these different interesting people yields something really fascinating and a place where all of us can experiment and grow.

“I’m so excited to start playing with Emily,” she adds. “Ko and I talk too much. Jen wants to try things a billion times. Emily listens and says, ‘Okay. That fixed it.’ There’s something about her that, in a visceral and impossible-to-quantify way, was complementary in a really deep and meaningful sense to all of us.”

Second violinist Leshnower stresses that a new member has to embrace the work and responsibilities. “You have to share a common passion for being in a professional string quartet. Our quartet meets every day weekly. There’s the type of repertoire that the group focuses on and a shared interest in understanding the group’s history, plus their focus, their trajectory, the logistics. It’s also a business with supporting businesses, connected managers, publicists, and whoever is booking the concerts, the presenters. You have to feel comfortable working with all those folks and representing the quartet in any sort of business and educational conversation. We have held long-term residencies at universities and also short-term residencies where we go in and work with the students.”

First violinist Otani describes the importance of each member’s dedication to the ensemble’s mission—how, during its 40 years of development, the quartet “journeyed from obscurity to clarity of purpose. Our mission crystallized to championing underrepresented composers, especially women, ensuring their work isn’t buried but thrives through performance. Like Beethoven, whose legacy endured criticism, these composers deserve recognition. We bridge generations, preserving and promoting music’s evolution. Collaborating with artists across disciplines enriches our performances, leaving a legacy beyond personal acclaim. This mission, once inconceivable in my solitary practice sessions, now fuels our collective endeavor, ensuring the quartet’s continuity and relevance in the cultural landscape.”

The Cassatt’s first concert with Brandenburg will take place September 15 at Music Mountain in Falls Village, Connecticut. Highlights of the new season will include music by Mozart, Shostakovich, Price, and Dorothy Rudd Moore. The quartet’s 40th anniversary celebrations in 2025 and 2026 will feature a new piano quintet by Victoria Bond and a new string quartet by Joan Tower. There will be an array of appearances next season in New England, Texas, the Midwest, and New York, and an Italian tour planned for 2025.

The American Quartet Search

The change of violists at the American String Quartet was announced April 12 during Avshalomov’s last concert at the Manhattan School of Music, where the quartet is in residence. Explaining that he was moving back to his hometown of Portland, Oregon, he tells me, “I don’t know of a situation as smooth and stress-free as this one. And that’s one of the many things I’d like to share—that it’s possible to do this so that everybody gets what they want.

“We’ve had other personnel changes in the American Quartet over the years, when we’ve auditioned people and sometimes had trial periods. But in this case, we were all at the Great Wall International Music Academy for 12 or 13 summers. We’ve been through some trials and experienced many delights. When I started discussing my plan with my colleagues about two and a half years ago, only one name popped into all four of our heads. And here he is. The quartet continues—and I get to climb mountains again.”

Buchholz admits that his only recent quartet work was when he subbed for the Auryn Quartet’s Stewart Eaton for a year. “I’m looking forward to playing the major literature at that high level again. In Europe, we have a mandatory retirement age, which fits the quartet perfectly, because where else are you going to find a 65-year-old with an interesting musical life and not too many existential problems?” Buchholz was fortunate enough to have found an apartment in New York through the generosity of another great chamber music player, violinist Ida Bieler. 

Aside from three annual concerts at MSM, the ASQ will have only a few concerts in the US this season—in Westport, Washington, and Corpus Christi. “Not the major series right away,” Buchholz says. “I’ll need the time to find the sound and spirit, and the quartet will need the time to integrate me. We will work on all the repertoire we’d like to play during the coming years.” They will play three concerts with Avshalomov this September in Taos, New Mexico, and Pueblo, Colorado.

Although the American has been known for contemporary music, Buchholz’s arrival signals a change in focus. “We decided that this will be the autumn of the quartet; we want to really have great performances with the repertoire that we all love. And leave the experimental contemporary music now to young quartets.”

Just as this issue was going to press, a third New York–based quartet, the Ulysses, established in 2015, announced it too had a new violist, Peter Dudek. First violinist Christina Bouey tells me that “Peter comes to us with a boundless enthusiasm and musical openness. His sound and spirit are equally vibrant and mesh with the raw emotional and passionate style which is Ulysses Quartet!”

When I ask about the impact of the selection process, she says, “It was an opportunity to sit down together and really reflect on what our needs and values were as a group and how to find someone who was not only great in their own right but a good fit in the long term.” Like the Cassatts, they reached out to colleagues, mentors, and friends and played with candidates in live performances. “Blending with different sounds and responding to new ideas challenged us to be flexible and creative with our own playing. The search from start to finish took us eight months.”

When I ask Buchholz how he thinks his arrival will affect the American String Quartet, he says, “Of course, it’s not like when you change the first violin, but when you change 25 percent of the personnel, you will have a different energy; even if the bowings and fingerings remain the same, the personality will maybe be a little different. We will see how it works.”