New ensemble: St.
Lawrence String Quartet
BY CHRISTIAN CAMOZZI
The internationally
acclaimed St. Lawrence String Quartet will assume the
position of ensemble-in-residence at Stanford and join
the faculty of the Department of Music, beginning with
the academic year 1998-99.
The quartet consists of
first violinist Geoff Nuttall, second violinist Barry
Shiffman, violist Lesley Robertson and cellist Marina
Hoover.
While their first year on
campus will be transitional, the quartet will organize
the chamber music and string program, coach student
musicians, and audition prospective Stanford students and
incoming students for private lessons. They will hold
master classes and will perform regularly on campus,
including a free recital at 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday,
Sept. 23 in Dinkelspiel Auditorium.
The appointment is the
result of an extensive search that attracted applications
from many first-rate ensembles, Music Department
officials say.
"The St. Lawrence
String Quartet impressed us above all with the range of
their interpretative approaches," said department
chairman Stephen Hinton. "They do not play
everything the same, far from it. They seem to tackle
each of the pieces they perform from a very broad
repertoire on its own terms."
Associate Professor
Jonathan Berger, who chaired the ensemble search
committee, called the quartet "an astonishing
combination of grace and chutzpah. These exciting
performers make bold and beautiful musical
statements."
Named after the St.
Lawrence River, which cuts across the North American
continent, the ensemble has strong ties to both Canada
and the United States. Nuttall, the first violinist,
moved from his native Texas to London, Ontario, and
studied at the University of Western Ontario and the
University of Toronto. Shiffman, the second violinist,
was born and educated in Toronto, where he studied at the
Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of
Toronto. Robertson, the violist, received her first
degree from the University of British Columbia and
advanced degrees from the Curtis Institute and the
Juilliard School, while Hoover, the cellist, earned
degrees at the Curtis Institute and Yale University. Both
Robertson and Hoover are Edmonton natives.
"We were thrilled to
discover that Stanford students have wide-ranging
interests, in addition to being wonderful performers. I
don't think we'd find such broad-minded students at more
performance-oriented schools," Shiffman said.
"Since we work so much with living composers and
have such a strong interest in new music, we're eager to
work with Stanford's composition faculty and its famed
computer music program."
The St. Lawrence String
Quartet has played in many prestigious international
venues. After winning both the Fourth Banff International
String Quartet Competition and the Young Concert Artists
International Auditions in 1992, the quartet made
critically acclaimed debuts in New York City at the 92nd
Street "Y," the Kennedy Center in Washington,
D.C., and the Paris Opera.
In October 1993, at the
invitation of Isaac Stern, the quartet performed at the
White House for President and Mrs. Clinton, as part of an
evening that honored the recipients of the National Medal
of the Arts. During the 1994-95 season, the group toured
Japan and gave debut performances at the Concertgebouw in
Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London and DSN in Dieppe. They
have had return engagements in Amsterdam and Paris,
including the Concertgebouw, Radio France and Théâtre
de la Ville. They also have played at festivals in
Europe, including the Turku Festival in Finland and the
Festival Consonances in St. Nazaire, France.
The quartet has toured
extensively in North America, performing in New York City
at Lincoln Center's Great Performances series and the
Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as in return engagements
to Washington, D.C., Boston, Kansas City, Chicago, La
Jolla, Montreal, Toronto (including a three-concert
series for Music Toronto), Ottawa, Calgary, Banff,
Edmonton and Vancouver (nine concerts for Music in the
Morning). They also have played at many of the great
American music festivals, including the Spoleto USA
Festival in Charleston, S.C.; the Newport Festival in
Rhode Island; the Rockport Festival in Massachusetts; and
the Cape and Island Festival on Cape Cod.
In the 1997-98 season,
they performed at Boston's Jordan Hall for the Bank of
Boston Celebrity Series, for the opening seasons of the
Chan Centre in Vancouver and the Winspear Centre in
Edmonton, and at New York's Lincoln Center. The quartet
also performed in Brazil and Mexico, returned to Europe
for Holland's Ijsbreker Festival and the Théâtre de la
Ville in Paris, and traveled as far afield as Vietnam,
where they performed a special televised concert. They
recently secured an exclusive recording contract with
EMI.
In deciding to come to
Stanford, Shiffman says, "We were looking for a
place to hang our hat. The reality of full-time
performing is that you need a place to come home to that
is musically nurturing. Collaborating with students will
help us recharge our batteries."
Formed in the fall of
1989, the St. Lawrence String Quartet studied in a
program jointly sponsored by the University of Toronto
and the Royal Conservatory of Music. Following this
grounding, they were invited as the first quartet to
participate in a new two-year residency program at the
Hartt School of Music at Hartford University, where they
received intensive coaching with the renowned Emerson
String Quartet. They were appointed Graduate String
Quartet-in-Residence at the Juilliard School and
performed duties as teaching assistant to the members of
the Juilliard String Quartet. They later filled a similar
position at Yale as teaching assistant to the Tokyo
String Quartet.
The St. Lawrence String
Quartet is involved in the commissioning and performing
of new works. Composers such as Patrick Cardy, Christos
Hatzsis, Osvaldo Goligov and Chris Paul Harmon are
writing new works, some incorporating multimedia
collaborations, especially for the quartet.
In auditioning at
Stanford, Shiffman notes that the quartet relied heavily
on new music. "We played R. Murray Shafer's String
Quartet No. 3, which is a very theatrical piece a bit
of a risk in coming to a new school. But at Stanford, we
found there was an open, welcoming attitude to music we
feel close to."
About their playing,
Hinton says, "Their music-making combines a
commitment to expressivity with the best insights of the
historical performance practice movement. Their playing
of Haydn, for example, was at once rhythmically subtle in
its phrasing and rich-toned."
Adds Berger, "Whether
they are performing a Haydn quartet or one of the many
quartets that they commissioned, their performances exude
absolute commitment to the music, intelligent and
well-informed interpretations and, above all,
electricity.
"The St. Lawrence
Quartet will be a tremendous addition to cultural life at
Stanford and in the Bay Area," Berger added.
"They will form the cornerstone of the Music
Department's commitment to a rich and vibrant chamber
music program."
For more information about
the quartet and their upcoming concerts on the Stanford
campus, contact the Department of Music, 723-3811. SR
|
