Peter Winograd (violin) joined the American String Quartet in 1990. He gave his first solo public per­for­mance at the age of 11, and at age 17 he was accepted as a scholar­ship student of Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School. Re­cog­nized early as an ex­cep­tion­ally prom­is­ing young artist, Winograd was a top prize winner in the 1988 Naumburg Inter­na­tional Violin Competition. He then made his New York debut to critical acclaim and has since appeared as a guest soloist with numerous orchestras and in recital across the country and abroad, including annual collaborative performances with cellist Andrés Díaz at the Florida Arts Chamber Music Festival. In 2002 Winograd performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Hartford Symphony; his father, Arthur Winograd, was the featured guest conductor. Winograd has been a mem­ber of the violin and chamber music faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music School (where the American is Quartet-in-Residence) since 1990. Born into a gifted musical family, Winograd began his studies with his parents. His mother was a pro­fes­sion­al pianist, and his father was the founding cellist of the Juilliard Quartet and a conductor of the Hartford Symphony in Hartford, Connecticut, where Winograd grew up. He holds bach­e­lor’s and master’s degrees from Juilliard. His wife, violinist Caterina Szepes, is a reg­u­lar participant in the Marlboro Festival and a member of the Metropolitan Opera Or­ches­tra. His violin is by Giovanni Maria del Bussetto (Cremona, 1675).

A founding member of the American String Quartet, Laurie Carney (violin) holds the distinction of performing quartets longer than any other woman in this elite field. The American String Quartet began concertizing while she was still an undergraduate at Juilliard. Apart from the Quartet, she has per­formed trios with her husband, cellist William Grubb, and pianist Anton Nel; duos with violist Michael Tree; and as an ensemble partner to such artists as Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Salvatore Accardo, Cho-Liang Lin, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Misha Dichter, Ralph Kirshbaum, Alain Meunier, and Frederica von Stade. Carney's concerto appearances include performing Mozart's Sin­fo­nia Con­cer­tan­te with the Bournemouth Symphony, Basque National Orchestra, and the Welsh National Orchestra. She gave the premiere of Gianpaolo Bracali’s Fantasia for violin and piano. Most recently, Robert Sirota composed his Violin Sonata No. 2 for her, and in addition to per­forming the premiere last spring, she will record the work later this season. A faculty artist at the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1974 and the Manhattan School of Music since 1984, Carney has held teaching positions at the Mannes College of Music, Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins Uni­ver­si­ty, University of Ne­bras­ka, University of Michigan, Shepherd School at Rice Uni­ver­si­ty, and the Taos School of Music. Her dedication to the development of young players brings frequent invitations to offer master classes, most recently in California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, and New Mexico. Carney is a member of a prodigious musical family: her father was a trumpeter and edu­ca­tor, her mother a concert pianist, and all three siblings are professional violinists. Her violin is by Carlo Tononi (Venice, 1720).

Matthias studied in his hometown Hamburg, in Cincinnati, Detmold and at the renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Among his teachers were Bruno Giuranna, Michael Tree, Alexander Schneider and Karen Tuttle.He won top prizes at the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb Bonn 1978, the Fischoff and the Coleman competition in Los Angeles 1982 as well as the International Viola Competition Budapest 1984.Since 1976 Buchholz performed as soloist and chamber musician in most European countries, in Canada and the U.S.A., as well as in South America, Russia, India and throughout the Far East.He was a member of the Brahms Quartet Hamburg, the Ridge Quartet New York and the Heine Quartet in Cologne. Since 1991 he has performed in numerous concerts and recorded more than 25 CD’s with the Linos-Ensemble, who was awarded an ECHO-KLASSIK 2017 for their CD of the Quintet by Franz Schmidt.He was invited to perform at the Marlboro Festival, at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Salzburg Festwochen, Rheingau Festival, Library of Congress (Washington D.C.), Tokyo- and Seoul Spring Festival, Hitzacker, Mondsee, Este, Lyon Musicades and Warsaw Spring Festival, where he shared the stage with the Vermeer-, the Petersen-, the Auryn- and Fine Arts Quartet, as well as being inspired by musicians like Benny Goodman, Heinz Holliger, Rainer Kussmaul, Anner Bylsma, Viktor Tretjakov, Christian Polterá und Cecile Licad and members of the Guarneri Quartet.From 1990-2024 he has held a position as Professor for Viola at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne and at the HEM Genève  2013-2018. A passionate teacher since very early on, he has held masterclasses in the U.S., in Korea, China, Japan and most European countries. His former students are working today successfully as orchestra members, principal violists and teachers at major conservatories around the globe.In September 2024 he joined the American String Quartet as their violist and he will be teaching chamber music at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He plays on a viola made by Pietro Ferati 1785 in Siena and an anonymous instrument from 1730, presumably made by a flemish luthier.

Since his Carnegie Hall debut in 1994, Wolfram Koes­sel (cello) has embarked on a diverse career as a cham­ber musician, recitalist and soloist, performing internationally in the world's most distinguished concert halls. The Strad praised his “ex­cep­tion­al­ly attractive cello playing,” and he has per­formed concertos with orchestras in Japan, Germany, South America and North America. His collaborations include performances with leg­end­ary tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, distinguished dancer Mikhail Barysh­ni­kov, and cellist Yo Yo Ma, among many others. Koessel joined the American String Quartet in 2005, and also appears with a wide range of ensembles, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The New York Philharmonic and Trio Ink (a group he formed with violinist Yosuke Kawasaki and pianist Vadim Serebryani), which performs creative and collaborative concerts throug­hout Japan, the United States, and Canada. Koessel served as music director of the Mark Morris Dance Group from 2004 to 2008 and has toured extensively with the company both nationally and internationally, performing in several world premieres. A sought-after professor, he has taught at Aspen Music Festival, The Great Wall Festival, Heifetz Institute, Mannes School of Music and many more. Since 2005, he has been an artist-in-residence and a professor of cello and chamber music in the preparatory and college divisions at the Manhattan School of Music. His cello is by Giovanni Cavani (Modena, 1917).