ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609160009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 14 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: WHAT IS ART?
SOURCE: BETH MACY
Asking Audubon Quartet cellist Clyde Shaw to define art is the antithesis of asking North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms.
Meaning: Shaw wouldn't touch the question.
"It's a dangerous thing for us to even debate," the Blacksburg musician says. "We've seen that come forth from our own federal government's near-demise of the National Endowment of the Arts - all because people have opinions and judgments and pronouncements on what art is."
As for his own brush with aesthetics, Shaw feels most connected to art when he's in the middle of a performance. "I feel a part of what's going on. When I see a tear being shed, or a smile, and I know that what I'm doing is becoming a part of the emotional world, of the spirit of that person, it's a beautiful thing."
Lauded by The New York Times for their "strikingly beautiful, luminescent" sound, the renowned chamber music group has been based at Virginia Tech since 1981. This year, the Audubon Quartet will perform 60 to 80 concerts, including a series of pieces celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Schubert. The quartet's recordings of works by Ernst von Dohnanyi, Kodaly and Schumann are being released this year as well.
"To be caught in part of a beautiful work of poetry, or to stand in front of a great painting, it's the same experience," Shaw adds. "One experiences that moment of aesthetic arrest, and you know you've been had.
"Experiencing art, to me, is when you realize it's not something you're just observing, but you've literally become a part of that creation."
LENGTH: Short : 37 linesby CNB