Yesterday, thanks to the generosity of Chamber Music Northwest, my string quartet [the Arnica Quartet] got the opportunity to get a two-hour coaching with an internationally-renowned chamber musician - Steven Tenenbom of the Orion Quartet and Opus One piano quartet.  It was a great experience for us to get some high-level feedback on our work up to this point on the Janacek String Quartet No. 2  ‘Intimate Letters’.

As a professional musician, it’s hard to keep one’s objectivity because one works in a vacuum most of the time.  Unlike most vocalists, instrumentalists don’t often continue with private lessons or master classes much beyond their school years.  Life gets busy, one’s ego gets enlarged, and lessons don’t seem like a priority anymore.

But the fact is, getting objective opinions of one’s playing from leaders in the field is vitally important to maintain artistic growth throughout one’s career.

My former (and sometime current) teacher Roberto Diaz, now the president of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, took lessons with Louis Krasner even as he was in his second gig as a member of the Boston Symphony.

In an interview I conducted with Diaz for The Strad magazine back in 2003, he credited the time he spent taking these lessons with helping him to win prizes in the Naumberg and Munich competitions, and with drastically improving his playing - even though he was already a top violist in a major orchestra.

For me, the chance to go back and take even just one lesson every year or so really gives my playing and morale a kick-start.  It reminds me of why I went into music, and what my goals for myself before life took over art.

So, to make a long story short, we got our best wishes validated, our butts kicked just a little, and came out of the coaching with big smiles on our faces.

Life is good.

Yesterday my quartet (the Arnica Quartet) played an early Mozart quartet (the G major, K. 157) and the great second string quartet of Leos Janacek, subtitled Intimate Letters. The concert was on a series presented by the OHSU Foundation, and took place in the acoustically and visually lovely OHSU Auditorium up on Marquam Hill.

The concert went very well, and was also well received (which is not always a guaranteed combination). It was also a fun concert to play.

While it might come as a surprise to many non-musicians, performing often not fun for a majority of the time for many of us. [Read more →]

Just a shameless plug: the Arnica Quartet will be giving a performance at the Loucks Lecture Hall of the Salem Public Library (central branch on Liberty Street) on Sunday, September 16th at 3:00 p.m.

We’ll be playing an early Haydn quartet (Op. 20 no. 4), the lone quartet of Claude Debussy, and the Brahms Piano Quintet with esteemed local pianist Cary Lewis, of the Lanier Trio.

The best part is…it’s free! Hope we see you there!

Last night the Arnica Quartet performed as part of the new (and hopefully annual) MarchMusic series held at the new OHSU medical office building (now informally known as the “Tram building”). It was an encouraging experiment. The lobby of this new LEED platinum-certified structure has surprisingly wonderful acoustics - we could hear each other very well, hear ourselves very well, and the three story atrium contributes a nice reverberation bloom to the sound. I would have liked to have talked a bit more, and I know that the audience was expecting more of that, but there wasn’t a graceful way to get to the microphone after the intermission, before we began the Debussy.

Overall, I think the concert went well. There were the usual glitches that always happen in a first public performance of a piece together, but there were a lot of nice moments as well. I’m finding that each time I approach a new Beethoven quartet, that there is yet more to marvel at. The care of construction, the sureness of his orchestration, and an innate sense of drama derived from the form - it’s all right there, as good as you could want, and all within the constraints of the typical Classical forms. All this in Op. 18 - before Beethoven reached his 30th birthday.

The Debussy is a continuing revelation.  Having done the Ravel and Debussy with the Ethos Quartet, I’m firmly convinced that the Debussy is the superior composition. The Ravel owes much to it, and is a beautiful and masterful piece. But the Debussy is so tight in its construction, and one is so unaware of the construction nonetheless, that it is a miracle. The taut, driven energy of the opening of the first movement is contrasted by the languid fluidity of the third movement, while the second movement makes extensive use of pizzicato (plucking of the strings), and the final movement makes the quartet a cyclical event with the high energy return of the opening theme of the piece. The ending is exhilarating, almost orchestral in its scope and sweep. It’s a difficult piece to play well, but always worth the effort.

It was also nice to meet one of my readers - “Eva” - in the flesh, and to have Elaine Calder (Oregon Symphony consultant) take time out of a busy evening to come hear us.

The Arnica Quartet will present a concert at the new OHSU Center for Health and Healing [directions] in the South Waterfront district on Wednesday, March 14th at 7:00 p.m.

We’ll be performing the string quartet of Claude Debussy and Beethoven’s Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 18 no. 6.

This concert is part of a March series of concerts to present classical music in the newly-developed South Waterfront district. Here is the schedule so far (subject to change):

• March 7 at 7:00 p.m. - Sarah Tiedemann, flute and Jessica Black, piano
• March 14 at 7:00 p.m. - Arnica String Quartet
• March 21 at 7:00 p.m. - Adam LaMotte, violin and Janet Coleman, piano