Joseph Gotoff, cello - Chestertown Piano Quartet
(USA)
Formed in 2024 at the National Music Festival, the Chestertown Piano Quartet is composed of faculty affiliated with some of the most prominent music schools in the United States, including Peabody, Yale, and Towson University. The members — Elizabeth Adams, violin, Renate Falkner, viola, Joseph Gotoff, cello, and Minji Nam, piano — are highly sought-after chamber musicians, having appeared in prestigious music festivals throughout the United States and internationally.
The Quartet has been named Ensemble-in-Residence at the Kent Cultural Alliance in Chestertown, MD for the 2025-26 season, and will be presenting works by underrepresented female composers of the 19th and 20th centuries alongside newly commissioned contemporary compositions and classic favorites. The quartet is committed to local education and to promoting interdisciplinary collaboration between the many diverse artists in residence at the KCA and throughout the greater context of Maryland and Washington D.C.’s vibrant cultural community.
Praised for his “clarity and an approachable sensitivity” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer, 2019), cellist Joseph Gotoff is recognized as a thoughtful and passionate performer, scholar, and teacher. With a repertoire spanning the Baroque to the modern era, Joseph works closely with a number of composers working today, with premieres by composers including Lowell Liebermann, Cody Forrest and Binna Kim. In 2020, his debut album “The Voice of the Cello” was released to critical acclaim on the Spice Classics label.
Joseph has appeared as a recitalist in concert halls across Europe, Asia and the Americas, with a particular emphasis on repertoire by 19th- and 20th-century female composers. As a chamber musician, he performs regularly throughout the Washington and Baltimore region with such diverse ensembles as Counterpoint Concerts, Washington Classical Arts, the New Orchestra of Washington, and the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra in Massachusetts. Joseph is also the founder and Artistic Director of the Outer Cape Chamber Music Festival, which will hold its inaugural season in Provincetown, MA in June of 2025.
In 2021, Joseph joined the faculty of Towson University as Assistant Professor of Cello, where he also conducts the symphony orchestra. He also teaches cello and ensembles at the Levine School of Music in Washington, D.C. In the summers he performs as faculty artist at the National Music Festival.