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Weeklong J.S.Q. Seminar Inspires Young Ensembles By REBECCA MCFAUL AND RUSSELL FALLSTAD
Each May, a select group of young string quartets has the privilege of immersing themselves in an intensive week of coaching with the Juilliard String Quartet—culminating in concerts that feature each ensemble in a full-length work. As this year's selection process for the seminar was underway, we asked members of a "veteran" participant, the Fry Street Quartet, to let our readers in on the nature of the "iceberg" beneath the tip represented by those concerts (which they are welcome to attend).
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| The Fry Street Quartet—-violinists Jessica Guideri and Rebecca McFaul, violist Russell Fallstad, and cellist Anne Francis—has participated twice in the Juilliard String Quartet seminar. (Photo by Don Hunstein) |
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Living like a poor artist in New York for a week—it's something between a vacation and a transformation, depending on how far one's traveled, and from where. We've come twice across the country from Utah to work with the Juilliard String Quartet in its annual seminar at the School. Being in New York always makes me think of some advice from a friend of our quartet—composer, jingle writer, and longtime New Yorker Thomas McFaul (yes, he's also my relative). "In New York," he says, "everyone is doing something interesting. The city teaches you; all you have to do is pay attention."The Juilliard String Quartet seminar will leave a participant inspired and exhausted if one is even remotely paying attention. Four days of double coachings with four of the most intense and brilliant chamber musicians in the world; three hours a day to digest it all (I'm still digesting, a year later); practicing on one's own; a final concert to show what the group's done with their new wisdom; and New York City calling to those of us who now find ourselves in Utah, all make for a pretty dense and extraordinary week.We first got to work with members of the Juilliard Quartet at Isaac Stern's seminars in Jerusalem and at Carnegie Hall. We couldn't get enough, and sought out the Juilliard Quartet seminars more recently. In our first J.S.Q. seminar in 2003, we cracked open Beethoven's Op. 132. We brought the piece in again for our second visit last May, after rehearsing and performing it on our own. The learning process for this piece was sped up by many years and was deepened greatly with the J.S.Q.'s advice on just about everything from conception to construction, including a myriad of details.There's nothing more inspiring than playing with Joel Krosnick standing in the middle of your quartet, conducting and singing a phrase with a vibrato one could drive a truck through, channeling the essence of the music as if he's got an IV hooked up to your quartet's jugular. It's bizarrely metaphysical. It crossed our minds that Mr. Krosnick may just be Beethoven reincarnated as a quartet cellist—this time happy and able to both play and hear the music that was only in his tortured mind's ear the first time around (and there is an uncanny resemblance, no?).
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Juilliard String Quartet Seminar Concert
Paul Hall
Tuesday, May 17, 4 & 8 p.m.
Free; no tickets required.
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The precious mentoring that we've enjoyed with the J.S.Q. stays with us. If I want to find inspiration for our rehearsals at home, all I need to do is picture Mr. Copes with his marvelous and kind intensity, and I'll remember to ask myself a question about the phrase, harmony, or timing that will undoubtedly improve something or solve a musical problem. Conjuring up Mr. Rhodes makes me want to do my homework analytically and historically—to read Doctor Faustus, to analyze the symphonic and operatic works of Beethoven while researching his letters and manuscripts. Thinking of Mr. Smirnoff makes me strive for meaning and creativity, freedom in the playing, poetry.With the J.S.Q.'s extraordinary schedule, it's fantastic that they save a week to devote themselves to eight young ensembles. Not only are they sharing their musical wisdom, but they also share their inspiring example as a quartet, as players, and as teachers. At the end of one of the long days of coachings (six hours of intensive teaching for each of them!) they held an open rehearsal of Beethoven's Op. 131 and were sounding fantastic as ever. They embody what every reaching young group wants to be, and are generous to include so many of us in their sphere.The final concerts of the seminar are thrilling, with every talented group primed and aspiring to play its best. Even if one hasn't been a participant throughout the week, the culminating concerts convey all the wonderful energy that's been shared, considered, and practiced so diligently, making it a memorable experience for everyone involved, both onstage and off.The list of successful quartets and great musicians who have coached with the Juilliard Quartet over the past half-century is astonishing, and it's even more astonishing to ponder that one can trace the J.S.Q.'s influences all the way back to Beethoven himself. Will the Juilliard Quartet's open rehearsal this year be broadcast live in Times Square, like the N.B.A. finals? Anyone paying attention would see the logic.Violinist Rebecca McFaul and violist Russell Fallstad not only live together and play together in the Fry Street Quartet, but also somehow found themselves writing this article together in the first person.
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