Internationally recognized as one of the world's finest quartets, the American String Quartet recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. Highlighting the anniversary was the Quartet’s debut in a new series of recordings on the Arabesque label, including quartets of celebrated composer Richard Danielpour and the launch of the complete Brahms string chamber music featuring a stellar list of collaborative artists. The Quartet was honored to be selected to represent the chamber music field in a series of retrospective concerts celebrating the Naumburg Foundation’s 80th anniversary, performed by previous winners of the Naumburg Award.

In three decades of touring, the American has performed in all fifty states and appeared in virtually every important concert hall throughout the world. Their presentations of the complete quartets of Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Bartók, and Mozart have won widespread critical acclaim. The Quartet performs frequently with celebrated guest artists, including clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and famed pianist Menahem Pressler, with whom the American will tour in Europe and South America during the 2008-2009 season.

Resident quartet at the Aspen Music Festival since 1974 and at the Manhattan School of Music in New York since 1984, the American has also served as resident quartet at the Taos School of Music (1979 to 1998), the Peabody Conservatory, and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The Quartet's diverse activities have also included numerous international radio and television broadcasts, tours of Asia, and performances with the New York City Ballet, the Montreal Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. In the summer of 2008 the Quartet returned to Beijing for its fourth residency at the Great Wall International Music Academy.

Frank Bidart has written numerous collections of poems, including Watching the Spring Festival (2008), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965-90 and Desire (1997), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critic's Circle Award. Mr. Bidart’s honors also include the Bollingen Prize in American Poetry, the Wallace Stevens Award, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation Writer's Award and the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. Mr. Bidart has taught poetry at Wellesley College since 1972.

Matthea Harvey is the author of Sad Little Breathing Machine (Graywolf, 2004) and Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form (Alice James Books, 2000). Her third book of poems, Modern Life (Graywolf, 2007) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Cirlcle Award and a New York Times Notable Book. Her first children’s book, The Little General and the Giant Snowflake, illustrated by Elizabeth Zechel, is forthcoming from Tin House Books. Matthea is a contributing editor to jubilat, Meatpaper and BOMB. She teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence.

Born in Toronto, J. Mae Barizo was shortlisted for Canada's 2008 Robert Kroetsch award for Innovative Poetry and Ahsahta Press's Sawtooth Poetry Prize. In 2007 she received an International Publication Award from Atlanta Review, and was an Editor's Prize finalist for Spoon River Poetry Review. As a prize winner in the William Stafford Award, she was published in Rosebud. Her work has also appeared in Baltimore Review, Boxcar Poetry Review, Sink Review, Atlanta Review, among others. She has work forthcoming in Prairie Schooner and Bellingham Review. She is the author of two chapbooks, "The Concert Review" and "The Marble Palace."