Philip Setzer, founding member and violinist of the Grammy award-winning Emerson Quartet, will discuss how a famed string quartet, comprised of four equally accomplished and opinionated individuals, arrives at an interpretation of the classic string quartet repertory. From meeting technical challenges to questions of tempo and musicality, he will describe this process and how it has evolved for the Quartet over the years. The discussion will include other factors that influence interpretation, such as the text and its sources, the characteristics and background of a composer, and the input of other performers, colleagues and mentors. As an illustration of this process, Mr. Setzer and Stephanie Chase will read a previously unrehearsed short work for two violins by Bartok and then listen to the composer's performance of the work (in its version for piano), after which they will construct their own interpretation and perform the work. The eminent analyst Martin Nass, who has interviewed many composers about their work, will participate in the discussion.

Named for Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Emerson String Quartet has achieved recognition as one of the world's top chamber ensembles since its formation in 1976, most recently through a seventh Grammy Award for its recording of quartet works by Grieg. The group's reputation partially rests upon its daring interpretations of core string quartet repertory: it has performed the complete quartet cycles of Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Bartok in major concert halls around the world.

Stephanie Chase is a violinist who has performed as soloist with many of the world's leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. She is also Artistic Director and co-founder of the Music of the Spheres Society, which is dedicated to exploring the links between music, philosophy, and the sciences. She teaches violin at New York University's Steinhardt School. In her spare time, she writes music arrangements and studies Stradivari violins. In late May 2008 she will perform one of her signature works, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, in Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall.

Martin Nass has been a psychoanalyst for almost 50 years, and Clinical Professor and Supervisor in the New York University Postdoctoral Program since 1971. He is also Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, where he established and directed a graduate psychology program for many years. Currently, he is a member of the faculty and a training and supervising analyst at The New York Freudian Society. For many years, he has been actively engaged in the study of the creative process in composers, and has interviewed many prominent contemporary American composers. He has been playing and studying the violin since the age of eight and is actively involved in amateur chamber music ensembles.

Philip Setzer began studying violin at the age of five with his parents, both violinists in the Cleveland Orchestra. He continued his studies with Josef Gingold and Rafael Druian, and later at the Juilliard School with Oscar Shumsky. In 1967, Mr. Setzer won second prize at the Meriwether Post Competition in Washington, DC, and in 1976 received a Bronze Medal at the Queen Elisabeth International Competition in Brussels. He has appeared with the National Symphony, Aspen Chamber Symphony, the Memphis, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Omaha and Anchorage Symphonies, and on several occasions with the Cleveland Orchestra. Mr. Setzer has been a regular faculty member of the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshops at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center. His article about those workshops appeared in The New York Times on the occasion of Isaac Stern's 80th birthday celebration. He also teaches as Visiting Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at SUNY Stony Brook and has given master classes at schools around the world.