Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 29, 1994 TAG: 9405310135
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV14 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
\ "You call THAT a crescendo?" yells Doris Lederer.
Three young adults, music stands before them, are singing and humming their way through the opening bars of Erno von Dohnanyi's "Serenade," making the motions of playing their instruments, which lie on the floor beside them.
When they hear Lederer, the three lean their bodies into the next phrase, giving it everything they have: "Digga-digga-digga-dee ... Dummmm-dum-doobie-doobie-doo ...
Yep, this is peculiar, all right. What DO you call this?
Call it boot camp for string quartets. Call it weird scenes inside the chamber music gold mine.
Or call it the Audubon Quartet 1994 String Quartet Seminar at Virginia Tech.
The seminar has brought to this quiet college town four young quartets from some of the nation's best music schools. For 10 days, the 16 aspiring musicians are living and working on the Tech campus under the tutelage of the Audubon Quartet, learning how to rehearse, how to perform, how to function together as chamber music units.
On Monday, the seminar will conclude when the four young quartets will demonstrate what they've learned in a free concert at 4 p.m. in the Squires Recital Salon.
Lederer is the violist for the Audubons, and in a real sense represents everything her young students from the Eastman School of Music want to be. Major-label recording artists with international reputations, the members of Tech's quartet-in- residence are able to do what most chamber musicians only dream of: devote all their time to quartet playing.
Right now she's putting Katherine Winterstein, David Beem and Andrew Duckles (another member will arrive later) through an exercise to test their comprehension of Dohnanyi's music.
"OK, I want you to verbalize this again without your instruments," says Lederer. "I wanna see if you can really feel this with the accents and with the gestures."
Most of the four quartets that have signed up for the Audubons' first summer camp are new ensembles that have come together especially for this experience. Each group of four is assigned to a member of the Audubons as their personal coach throughout the 10-day period, during which they eat, drink, sleep and dream quartet playing.
Because the average level of ability is already high, the members of the veteran quartet are able to bypass matters of basic musicianship and focus on interpretation. In the rehearsal rooms, the attention to detail is painstaking.
Audubon first violinist David Ehrlich is taking Dawn Hui, Sarah Shellman, Stephanie Chiao and Jan Miyake of Oberlin Conservatory through the first 18 bars of a Mendelssohn quartet. Over and over again.
Ehrlich sings the music himself and motions with his arms. "Look, we want it not louder but less insecure. We learn to play so properly, but sometimes we have to do things which are not so proper in the studio," he says, breaking off to demonstrate an unorthodox left-hand position.
All four of the Oberlin students are 18 years old and have just finished their first year. All will have another major in addition to music because, says cellist Stephanie Chiao, "A music career is so questionable - another degree gives you more stability and more parental approval."
"I've become much more interested in chamber music since I got here," says first violinist Dawn Hui." The coaching here is intensive, but it's very enjoyable."
"Something is very wrong then - I'm concerned," says Ehrlich with a grin.
In another room, Audubon cellist Tom Shaw is taking his quartet from Carnegie-Mellon University through the opening bars of Bedrich Smetana's "From My Life" quartet. Andrea Scampos, Inger Petersen, Susanna Reilly and Tim Tan are grimacing with concentration as they play.
Shaw stops the group for the umpteenth time and says, "I feel that Tim is playing in a very studied way, as if he's just glued to the music." Violist Tan shakes his head in comprehension.
The group tackles the same passage over and over again, and finally Shaw breaks into a broad smile and says, "Yes! YESS!" Tan takes a break to wipe the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. This is hard work.
Second violinist Inger Petersen says the Audubon seminar has revitalized her interest in quartet playing. "I liked chamber music until I had a bad experience with a quartet. Being in a bad quartet is like being in a bad marriage, and the one I was in was like the Branch Davidian Quartet.
"But here, everyone's willing to give a lot and compromise," said Petersen.
Audubon second violinist David Salness is coaching the Nahanni Quartet from Brown University, who have been together for about a year and are named after their cellist Nahanni Rous.
"That pickup still sounds too muscular. It should be more relaxed," says Salness, who is taking his group through a Mendelssohn quartet.
In addition to the daily coaching there will be three master classes, with a concert from the young players at the end of the seminar.
Nahanni second violinist Sebastian Ruth says the best thing about the Audubon seminar is the total concentration on music. "We were joking around late last night saying, 'Well, now I have to go study for my chemistry test.' It's so great to be able to play nonstop. We're very happily challenged."
Ehrlich recalls that it was an experience like this 30 years ago that changed his life. "It was a three-week seminar [in Israel] at which we ate and slept chamber music, and I finally realized what chamber music was about. I realized how much there was to learn besides just mastering the instrument," said Salness. "It's very collegial, it's not competitive."
Ehrlich said every young quartet develops its own style. "Some groups are very musical but don't pay any attention to rhythm or technique, but just play gorgeously. Others have fantastic rhythm and technique but they just don't make any music."
Ehrlich said the Audubon Quartet hopes the seminar will become a yearly event.
by CNB