Sterne Virtuoso Artists Manhattan String Quartet to anchor string festival
The Manhattan String Quartet, one of America's best-known chamber music ensembles, will perform and teach at Skidmore Friday through Sunday, Feb. 23-25, as 2007 Sterne Virtuoso Artists for the College's third annual String Festival.
Known for performance of 20th-century classic repertoire, MSQ will perform a program of music by Smetana, Shostakovich, and Beethoven in a public concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 24, in Filene Recital Hall. Admission for the concert is $5, or $2 for students and seniors.
The resident quartet at Colgate University for the past 16 years, MSQ has broad experience in working with student musicians. As guest artists for Skidmore's String Festival, the quartet members will coach student ensembles and also will work with guest quartets from high schools and youth orchestras.
Among the high school ensembles planning to participate is one whose musicians are members of the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and another whose musicians are members of the Saratoga Springs Youth Orchestra.
The MSQ will present a class at 1:40 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 24, in which they'll discuss their own rehearsal techniques, and will conduct a master class for all the student ensembles from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 25. The master class will conclude with a "play-through" of the finale from Mendelssohn's Octet.
The public is invited as audience for the master class.
"We like doing these residencies," explained MSQ violist John Dexter. "We want to have these students experience a full-blown, bona-fide string quartet," he said, noting that he had such an experience as a student musician, coached on a weekly basis by professional musicians.
"The way we do it, the students aren't nervous (about coaching). It's not so much about criticism as about our being helpful and supportive and we're all involved in the same process," he said.
As a professional quartet, Dexter and his fellow quartet members spend hours each week in critiques with each other, employing the same process they will share with the students at Skidmore.
Members of the visiting quartet with Dexter are violinists Eric Lewis and Calvin Wiersma, and cellist Chris Finkel.
The Manhattan String Quartet established a significant international reputation as interpreter of the 15 string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich, and presented the cycle in Japan and the U.S.
A recording of the cycle was the only chamber music recording to be listed in Time magazine's "Best of 1991" classical music list.
The quartet generally sees dramatic improvement in students during the course of a residency, according to MSQ's violist.
"Their inexperience is really about needing to learn how to work together, and that's what we hope to reveal. We give them the benefit of our collective experience," Dexter said.
He admits, though, that teaching is never a one-way street. "I feel I learn as much from these students as I can give out," he said. "Who are we to say that we know more than them about this music?"
"I'm extremely happy that the Manhattan String Quartet agreed to come for our String Festival, and I think everyone who participates will find it an invaluable experience," said violinist Michael Emery, director for the annual String Festival and a lecturer in music at Skidmore.