Sarita Kwok

Dr. Sarita Kwok is the inaugural Dean of the Adams School of Music and the Arts at Gordon College, which houses the Music, Theatre, Art and Communication Arts programs. In Fall of 2018, she became the inaugural recipient of the Adams Endowed Chair in Music at Gordon College. Dr. Kwok joined Gordon as Chair of the Department of Music in 2014, prior to which she served as Director of the undergraduate lessons program at the Yale School of Music while concurrently holding a faculty appointment at the Yale Department of Music.

As violinist, Kwok has distinguished herself as a charismatic and powerful performer whose passion for performing is matched only by her commitment to education, cultural leadership and academic innovation. Kwok was the founding first violinist of the Alianza Quartet, a former graduate quartet at Yale School of Music whose "unusually elegant sound" was praised by The New York Times following their Carnegie Hall debut. Kwok has been a member of the Arabella String Quartet for over a decade. Their first recording, "In the Moment" (Naxos, was named Album of the Week by Classic FM and praised by The Strad magazine as "an artfully balanced mix of rarities … this is a fine disc, the Arabella digging deep to produce performances of great intensity and poise". The quartet's most recent recording of Six Concertante Quartets by Chevalier de Saint-Georges (Naxos) has also garnered extensive praise. BBC Music Magazine reported "there's certainly no lack of prowess in these delightful performances ... This is wonderful advocacy of enchanting music." Fanfare Magazine applauds how the ensemble's "phrasing brings out lyrical lines with decided ease and grace. Any afficionados of 18th-century chamber music or collector of quartets would be glad to have this disc in their collection. A fine job all around, excellent performance of extremely interesting and delightful works."

Kwok has appeared on concert series and festivals throughout the United States including the Embassy Series (Washington, DC), Flagler Museum Series (Florida), Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music, Rockport Chamber Music Festival and in performances at Weill and Zankel recital halls at Carnegie Hall. Abroad she has performed at the Aldeburgh festival, Aix-en-Provence festival, at Sapporo's Kitara Hall (Japan), Villa Medici (Italy), the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume, and Salle Olivier Messiaen (France), Melbourne Concert Hall and Sydney Opera House (Australia). She is an artist member of the Boston-based Mistral Music and also performs regularly with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood. A persuasive advocate of contemporary music, Kwok recorded Ezra Laderman's last three string quartets with the Alianza Quartet for Albany Records to critical acclaim. More recently, her recording on Starkland records of Martin Bresnick's Josephine the Singer for solo violin was described by Gramophone as "gorgeously executed".

A respected pedagogue, Kwok has given masterclasses at institutions such as the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Maryland, Longy School of Music at Bard College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has served on the summer faculties of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and the Credo Festival at Oberlin, of which she is Artistic Director Designate. Additionally, she has presented at the American String Teacher Association National Conference on topics of diversity, inclusion and equity in violin studio teaching. Kwok received the Doctor of Musical Arts and Artist diploma degrees from the Yale School of Music, where she was a student of Syoko Aki and the Tokyo String Quartet. She performs on a violin made in 1736 by Italian Luther Johannes Florenus Guidantus, and a bow by Joseph Arthur Vigneron.