Cassatt String Quartet. Submitted photo

FARMINGTON— On Sunday, November 10, 2019, ArtsFarmington is sponsoring a Maine Mountain Chamber Music concert featuring the internationally known Cassatt String Quartet. They will perform Mendelssohn’s Quartet in a minor; Dvorák’s Piano Quintet in A Major, with Yuri Funahashi, piano; and The Incomplete Journey by XinYan Li. Two Pieces for viola and cello by Rebecca Clark will be performed by Betsy Anderson, cello, and Laurie Kennedy, viola. The performance will take place in Nordica Auditorium in Merrill Hall at the University of Maine at Farmington, starting at 3:00 p.m.

Acclaimed as one of America’s outstanding ensembles, the Manhattan based Cassatt String Quartet has performed throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East, with appearances in London for the Sapphire Jubilee Celebration of Queen Elizabeth II, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, New York’s Alice Tully Hall and the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Tanglewood Music Theater, the Kennedy Center and Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the Theatre des Champs – in Paris and Maeda Hall in Tokyo.

The Quartet has been presented on major radio stations such as National Public Radio’s Performance Today, Boston’s WGBH, New York’s WQXR and WNYC, and on Canada’s CBC Radio and Radio France.

Recent 2017 reviews state “…the Cassatt String Quartet is certainly one of the great ensembles of our age” (Concerto Net) and “… a wonderful performance, with a beautifully integrated sound…” (Jeffrey James for SoundWordSight). It has been cited numerous times in The New Yorker magazine’s Best Of…CD Selection. The Cassatt String Quartet is named for the celebrated American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt.

Laurie Kennedy and Yuri Funahashi, founders (in 2002) and co-directors of Maine Mountain Chamber Music, have been providing the community with the very best of chamber music. Laurie Kennedy has been Principal Violist and concerto soloist with the Portland Symphony Orchestra since 1981, and has performed at chamber music festivals throughout the Northeast.

She received her Masters and the Performers Certificate from Indiana University School of Music. Yuri Funahashi has performed in Japan, Australia, Canada, throughout Europe and in many of the major halls in the U.S. She is a performing member of the Festival Chamber Music Society in New York City, and has collaborated with the Verdehr Trio, and the Brentano and Cassatt String Quartets. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree.

The program will start at 7:30 in the Nordica Auditorium, Merrill Hall, University of Maine in Farmington. Adult tickets will be $12, those 18 and under are free as are UMF students with ID. College students from other schools will be $5.00 with ID. No one will be turned away.

Arts Farmington is affiliated with the University of Maine in Farmington.