Violinist Muneko Otani has appeared worldwide as chamber musician and leading violin pedagogue for over forty years. As first violinist of the Cassatt String Quartet since 1986, Otani has appeared in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, as well as in Europe and Asia. Major venues have included Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Jordan Hall, the Library of Congress, Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the Bastille Opera House.

As a chamber musician, Otani has collaborated with Walter Trampler, Martin Lovett, Marc Johnson, Paul Katz, Kazuhide Isomura, Ursula Oppens, Masuko Ushioda, Colin Carr, and Lawrence Lesser. With the CSQ, she has held fellowships at the Banff Centre, the Tanglewood Music Center, and Norfolk Chamber Music Festival; and, at Yale University, as assistant to the Tokyo Quartet.

Otani is a devoted and experienced teacher, and serves on the faculties of Williams College and of Columbia University’s Music Performance Program, the latter a position she has held for nearly thirty years. She has taught at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg and as assistant to Lewis Kaplan at the Mannes College of Music; and served as a panelist for the Juilliard Concerto Competition, the 2019 Postacchini International Violin competition, the Barlow Prize for composition, and Chamber Music America’s Residency Program.

Muneko Otani received a Bachelor of Music degree in both Performance and Education from the Toho Academy of Music in Japan, where she studied with Toshiya Eto. She continued her training at the New England Conservatory, where her principal teachers were Masuko Ushioda and Louis Krasner. Otani plays a 1770 J. B. Guadagnini of Parma violin.