NORWICH –The Chenango County Council of the Arts, Norwich, announces the first performance in its third Chamber Music Series. The Manhattan String Quartet will perform in the Martin W. Kappel Theater on Saturday, Feb. 20 at 8 p.m.

Critically acclaimed as one of America's leading ensembles, The Manhattan String Quartet is celebrating its 39th season. Hailed by Michael Steinberg of the Boston Globe as “a national treasure,” the Manhattan Quartet has appeared throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico and South America. In the autumn of 2005, the Quartet made its first tour of Asia and played to sold-out houses in Nagoya and Tokyo, Japan. Notable among its many recordings is the complete cycle of 15 Shostakovich string quartets which TIME Magazine called “One of the most important musical events of 1991”.The group has been Quartet-in-Residence at Colgate University for the past twenty-two years, and has also held similar posts at the Manhattan School of Music, Cornell University, Grinnell College, Western Connecticut State University, the Chamber Music Institute in Racine, Wisconsin and Michigan’s Interlochen National Music Camp (for 21 summers). The Quartet’s teaching activities also include its own annual KentMusic String Quartet Conference in June, and annual European conferences focusing on major works in the string quartet repertoire hosted in the cities where these pieces were composed.

In January 2010, the Quartet is headlining the Schubert in Vienna Conference which emphasizes cultural and educational exchange and is dedicated to furthering the tradition of string quartet playing.