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Arnhold Concert Highlights Quartet's Spirit of Exploration By ED KLORMAN
Around 10 o'clock on a Thurday morning, the Chiara String Quartet—currently in its first year as Juilliard's graduate quartet-in-residence—begins another busy day of rehearsing. As they unpack their instruments, cellist Gregory Beaver, a former computer science major, tells the others about some recent updates he has made to the quartet's Web site. "Did you see the color coding?" he asks, eagerly.
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| The Chiara String Quartet members are (clockwise from upper left) violist Jonah Sirota, violinist Julie Yoon, cellist Gregory Beaver, and violinist Rebecca Fischer. (Photo by Peter Schaaf) |
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After warming up on two Bach chorales, the group gets to work on the variations movement from Schumann's A-Major Quartet, Op. 41, No. 3. Their playing exudes an energy and sense of purpose that belies the morning rehearsal time. As the quartet stops to rehearse a few spots, it is obvious how compatible the members are. When violist Jonah Sirota suggests that they vary their approaches to cadences, violinist Rebecca Fischer immediately chimes in with several specific examples. Without a moment to spare, the quartet is playing again, putting these new ideas into practice.The Chiara String Quartet dates back to 1993, when Beaver and Fischer met as students at the Musicorda Summer String Program on the Mount Holyoke College campus in South Hadley, Mass. Beaver says, "I still remember the first reading together. We read the first movement of Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden.' I had been looking for a group that could play the piece for about two years. Our first read-through had a real, electric, musical connection."Sirota, a lifelong friend of Fischer's, joined the quartet shortly thereafter. During this time, the quartet studied at several prestigious festivals and seminars, most notably at the Aspen Music Festival's Center for Advanced Quartet Studies. While pursuing master's degrees at Juilliard from 1998-2000, the quartet held auditions for a permanent second violinist, and they finally chose Julie Yoon, who was then completing her undergraduate degree at Juilliard.The quartet's professional life began in fall 2000, with a two-year Chamber Music America rural residency in Grand Forks, N.D. Yoon says that the rural residency was a valuable opportunity for the quartet. "To go out to a place like that—where they provide you with housing, a stipend, a rehearsal space, performances, and teaching opportunities—was the best thing that could have happened for us," she observes.In addition to their heavy performance and rehearsal schedule, the residency allowed the quartet to deepen its commitment to educational outreach. The quartet members, who had studied aesthetic education with Eric Booth and Ed Bilous at Juilliard, drew on this knowledge throughout the residency, Fischer says. "The idea behind aesthetic education is that we try to give people a window into the music, so that they listen with more excited and interested ears. When we make up a presentation, we try to find an entry point into the music to get the kids to listen differently. In North Dakota, we had a lot of opportunities, not just for kids but also for adults, to open their minds to what they're hearing." Beaver documented the quartet's experiences throughout the residency in a series of columns published in The Strad magazine.In 2002, after two years in North Dakota, the quartet decided to move back east. "We felt that coming to New York would be great for our development," Sirota explains. "Also, we had basically been teaching ourselves, and we thought it would be good to get some help from people like the Juilliard Quartet." Although the Juilliard residency was not currently open, the quartet came to New York to begin another busy year of concerts and rehearsals. Having just won first prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the Chiaras were hopeful that they would be invited to study with the Juilliard String Quartet when the residency became available. Finally, beginning in 2003, this dream came true.As a part of its Juilliard residency, the graduate quartet presents the Lisa Arnhold Memorial Concert, which takes place annually in Alice Tully Hall. This year's concert will be particularly special. The Chiara String Quartet, the first quartet-in-residence to be composed exclusively of Juilliard alumni, will perform on rare instruments from Juilliard's collection, including three Stradivaris.
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Lisa Arnhold Memorial Concert
Alice Tully Hall
Tuesday, March 23, 8 p.m.
For ticket information, please see
the calendar.
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The concert's program mixes the old and the new. In addition to such familiar works as Mozart's Quartet in D Major, K. 499 ("Hoffmeister") and Beethoven's Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127, the concert will also feature a string quartet by the young Peruvian-American composer, Gabriela Lena Frank. Entitled Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout, the quartet was commissioned by the Chiara and premiered at the Musicorda festival in 2001. Describing Leyendas, Frank writes: "I've drawn inspiration from the idea of mestizaje as envisioned by the Peruvian writer José María Arguedas, whereby cultures co-exist without the subjugation of one by the others. Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout for string quartet mixes elements from the Western classical and Andean folk music traditions."Leyendas' six movements are each based on specific musical instruments or characters from Peruvian legends. Yoon explains that the inspiration for Leyendas comes from Frank's own ethnomusicological research. "Gabriela took a trip to South America and visited her 80 first cousins who live there. They were able to take her to remote villages and she went in, like Bartók, with recording gear. But unlike Bartók, she had small, spy microphones so that [at first] they couldn't tell that she was recording the music that they were playing. We have a CD of sounds that she recorded with instruments and different types of singing. She experienced a funeral service where professional mourners known as velorios cry at the funerals to make them sadder. The movement Canto de Velorio mixes the Catholic chants and the sound of the mourners crying," Yoon says.Studying with the Juilliard String Quartet has been a transformational experience for the Chiaras. Yoon explains, "They're not the kind of people who say, 'We have it all figured out. Here's how you should play it.' They're always searching for something better, and we want to reflect that in our playing, too."Sirota adds, "When we were all students here, we listened to the quartets-in-residence, and you would hear so much development very rapidly because of the Juilliard String Quartet's intense commitment to teaching. We hope that's happening to us. It's really exciting, because we feel every time we come out of a coaching, we have so many ideas, but also we have higher expectations for ourselves."Ed Klorman is a fourth-year viola student.
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