chicago Q ensemble blog

Goodbye violin, hello fun stuff

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:02:16 -0400

Last night’s composition session with Kyle, also known as Composer/Performer Therapy Session 2, was awesome.

Kyle has a great home studio setup in his basement; last night we recorded Kyle’s piece WHAT WOULD KILL ME, inspired by Zachary Schomburg’s poem of the same name. (Zach uses all caps in his titles — I don’t mean to yell!) Manual Cinema is going to use the recording as the music for an amazing Kickstarter campaign video.

The music is is totally starting to come together. Now that we’ve rehearsed, looked at the score, and practiced our parts (see previous panic post about sightreading), the music came through in all of its creepy, atmospheric and colorful glory.

But forget all this string quartet business. Let’s talk about the REAL reason that I am excited.

This piece of paper (amplified by a contact microphone) is one of my instruments! During BECAUSE IT COMES RIGHT AT YOU DOES NOT MEAN IT COMES TO SAVE YOU, Kate and I get to manipulate the paper to create a crackling, Arctic soundscape. Liz and Aimee are stuck with their viola and cello. They seem to be OK with this.

In another amazing development, I get to hold mallets and hit things that I’ve previously only heard about, such as cymbals, toms, and bass drums. Kate may have won the percussion lottery, however; her setup includes a wood block and some cymbals that Kyle used with a Peking opera troupe in China. (!)

FJORDS will be a feast for the ears and eyes. As long as I can hit two drums at once without laughing, we’re in good shape. And Kate will be keep working on the paper crescendo.

- Ellen

Composer/performer therapy session 1

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:57:21 -0400

Monday night was our first composition workshop with Kyle Vegter and Manual Cinema, in preparation for our February collaboration, FJORDS. I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that this workshop was awesome because of the ways in which it required all parties to leave their egos at the door (of Aimee’s new, awesome Bucktown apartment). Sometimes I think performers and composers need to get therapy together. So many neuroses to contend with.

From my perspective as a performer:

Rehearsal is usually a very private thing. It’s always just the four of us in a rehearsal. Monday, there were eight! All of our rehearsal rituals were on display. I was shocked at how it sort of felt like a bunch of my friends decided to come hang out in the bathroom with me. Is this why they call it ‘chamber music’?
We were sight-reading Kyle’s music. Kyle’s music involves diamond-shaped note heads, unusual symbols and abbreviations, and ever-changing time signatures.
We were sight-reading in front of the composer. Will he think it’s lame that we want to turn on the metronome, or that we keep counting out loud? Am I being too whiny about the unusual notation? We want to be GGG (musically!) for what the composer is doing.
We were sight-reading in front of Julia, Drew and Sarah — MC’s visual team — who had come to get a sense of the piece. What if we don’t give them a sense of ANYTHING? Will they be alarmed by all the funny noises we are making with our instruments?
Did I mention we were sight-reading? (This element is optional and will probably be eliminated next time.)

And, I could imagine, from the composer’s perspective (though perhaps Kyle can fill us in on his blog too!):

This quartet is sight-reading my music in front of me.
What if it’s unplayable?
What if they don’t like it?
What if, as Kyle said, it ‘sounds like nothing’?!

So. Emotions can run high. And we did it! We gave Kyle feedback on glissandos, notation issues, double-stop playability, octave ranges, etc. We felt appreciated by our visiting visual team; they looked really excited. It was awesome.

Of all the ego-checking necessary to this process, Kyle probably had the tallest order. And it was his idea! He was actually listening to me say stuff like, “This notation is like if a stop sign suddenly turned green” and not killing me. It was great. Thanks Kyle.

I should say, after discovering and reading Nico Muhly’s blog, I’m inspired to be more candid on this blog. He’s incredibly candid and honest there, and of course, this starts some great conversations about our field. The ideal blog tone is somewhere between stiff press release and reality TV. Right?

- Ellen

Behind the scenes: the beginnings of FJORDS

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:07:00 -0400

Ever since I got into self-producing concerts, I’ve been really curious about how other ensembles do it — and really grateful for other organizations, sharing what they know with us. I’ll be sharing behind-the-scenes process and insights, in the hopes that they’ll be interesting or useful. Holler at us with questions. - Ellen

A couple nights back, Q met up with our friends and collaborators Manual Cinema to hammer out the details of our big collaborative project, FJORDS, based on poems by Zachary Schomburg. We’re so excited! If you’re not familiar with Manual Cinema’s work, check out their website, which has some beautiful trailers to give you a taste of what they do.

When a string quartet collaborates with a contemporary shadow puppet company, there are many question marks. Should we be behind the screen, or in front of it? Will we be following the puppets, or will the puppets be following us? Can I stand up, while playing my violin, and interact with the puppets — please? (I’m proud to report I received a definitive ‘um, maybe’ from Kyle Vegter, the composer.)

We also hammered out financial and logistical aspects of our agreement: how much money we need to get this thing off the ground; who owns the rights to sound recordings, video, photographs; how we’ll split proceeds from ticket revenues.

We’re excited that, thanks to Kyle, the compositional process will be highly collaborative. The quartet will get together with him about twice a month, playing and talking through musical ideas and material, so that when we get the final version of the piece in November, it won’t be a “mysterious piece of paper.” At the same time, Kyle will be sharing scratch recordings and conceptual ideas with Julia, Drew and Sarah so that they can get to work on the visual elements of the show. It’ll be a big, continuous-feedback creative process.

The show will premiere February 23-26 in a theater-style run; we’ll let you know when the venue has been settled. We’ll also perform FJORDS at the Empty Bottle, with poet Zach!, on March 2 as part of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference. Special thanks to Kyle for discovering Zach’s awesome poetry, for hooking us up with this awesome conference, and for answering the phone when I called out of the blue six months ago and exclaimed, “Our groups should work together!”

Photo of Manual Cinema by Maren Celest.

Myrmyr gives a masterclass in awesome

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:30:00 -0400

Last weekend, Tyler and I went to see the Oakland-based electroacoustic duo Myrmyr at Enemy, a tiny secret-type venue on the third floor of a building right near the buzzing intersection of Damen, North & Milwaukee in Wicker Park. I’d seen a photo of Myrmyr, along with a recommendation from Peter Margasak, in the Reader that day.

Their photo made me instantly excited. I can haz women composers and string players?

Arriving at Enemy was sort of like arriving at a meeting of Fight Club. Three flights of abandoned, industrial stairs; a tiny plaque reading ENEMY in neon green; a heavy metal door. “After you,” my brave husband said.

If traditional classical venues intimidate with their enormous stages, gilded seats, and bizarre audience rituals, then hipster experimental venues threaten with their lack of signage, noncompliance with fire code, and possibility of physical danger. AND both communities might be accused of snobbery. Take Enemy’s web page: “We are generally not interested in rock shows, even if you can bring in 200 of your bros from the suburbs.” Fertile common ground!

Enemy is a pretty bare-bones venue — it’s BYOB; there were about thirty metal chairs set up in neat rows, and some couches behind. The first opening act, a solo electric guitarist called Holy Family, muttered to himself as he set up: “I’m not used to playing shows where people have chairs.”

I liked his music. Using live looping techniques, layer by layer, he created a beautiful wall of sound that you could groove to, sort of like a Steve Reich texture. And although all that machinery (loops, pedals, amps — I know, I’m old-fashioned) sometimes makes it hard to know what’s happening, his performance had a human element.

The same couldn’t be said of the next opener, Foisy/Jendon/Weis, a trio of electric guitar, synth and drums. (Although the show was running an hour behind, these guys took their time, chatting and drinking before they started playing - maybe waiting for friends to show up.) The synth and drums were so overpowering that the electric guitarist, fiddling too often with thousands of dollars in equipment, might as well not have been onstage. Their piece was too long; a few audience members could be observed sleeping. Again, fertile common ground!

And then, Myrmyr got ready to go. Two attractive, efficient women of Scandinavian heritage. They had a small carpet prepared with all of their looping pedals, multi-tracks, handbells color-coded by pitch, small harps, flutes, etc. Agnes, the cellist, put on her headset and starting singing. She tuned her crazy cool electric cello. They moved quickly and, in about ten minutes, had prepared a musical smorgasbord which revealed, without playing a note, that these ladies are in a different league than their openers. As I later learned, both women are composers trained at Mills College and have a multitude of solo and collaborative projects in the works.

Their music is beautiful; their live show is a tribute to (the perils and rewards of) multitasking. Play cello, press pedal, loop. Sing, press pedal four times, loop. Ring bell, loop. Ring bell, loop. Play small harp. Sing again.

Although my classically trained ear occasionally wanted something to be better executed and better in tune, I enjoyed every minute of watching them. Doesn’t this say something about balancing our priorities as performers? It was a jangly, raw, imaginative and fun experience — and the audience LOVED it. People around me were grinning from ear to ear. They loved the performers, the instruments, the spectacle of it all.

Note to string players: people just freakin’ love the violin and the cello. So don’t be scared. Put it out there. Put it out there at a venue packed with bearded guys. It’ll go over big.

- Ellen

A career services office that rocks.

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 11:01:05 -0400

So, have you noticed that many music schools are failing to prepare their students for the reality of musical careers and musical life? We have too. And we find it a tiny bit … frustrating.

Turtle Island Quartet in Chicago: Our shirts are still tucked in

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:29:00 -0400

Turtle Island Quartet has had a long and awesome career. The group was founded in 1985 (ahem — the year that two Chicago Q members were born — and BEFORE their newest member, Jeremy Kittel, was even conceived). In my mind, they’re giants and pioneers of crossover. They blur the boundaries between classical, rock, folk, and world music; they play original compositions and arrangements; and if last night at Millennium Park was any indication, people absolutely love them. The performance was part of the awesome, FREE Chicago series Dusk Variations. Let us give thanks for the arts money, and programming savvy, which somehow still exists in our city after all the shakeups this year.

My friend — fiddler, singer and songwriter Kellen Zakula — introduced me to some of Turtle Island’s players during our summer together in Aspen. Kellen was a huge fan of founding member Darol Anger and newest member Jeremy Kittel. (Kittel, who has built a MAJOR fiddle career as a violinist, plays viola in Turtle Island. Which gives you an idea how great the other fiddlers in the group are.)

So there we are at the concert: me, my husband Tyler, and our rock guitarist friend Jamie. We’re picnicking at Millennium Park; the weather is armpit-like, but we’re still happy. We’re drinking some wine, eating some snacks. The announcer introduces the group. Here they come! The rock-and-rollers of the string quartet! The crowd is excited! What will they do first!?!

… (cue three solid minutes of music-shuffling; no one speaks to the audience)

GAH! I squirmed on my picnic blanket. In part because, well — isn’t this what MOST of us do when we get onstage with our quartets? Scoot our chairs and stands, open our binders, clothespin music to the stands, and pray? But it is so un-rock star. It is so un-audience friendly. It is awkward! We need to not do this. Chicago Q often aspires to strut onstage, bow, grin, plop down in our chairs and start rocking. The reality is sometimes quite different.

Thus began my series of mental notes about their quartet technique. Because I’m not a proper concert reviewer; I’m a quartet player and a nerd. Thus, we must shop talk:

1. Wow — the viola really IS at an acoustical disadvantage. Seated on the outside, Kittel’s f-holes were faced pretty much away from the audience, though amplification of course helped, and Kittel turned out a couple of times. I was reminded of a recent facebook comment, in which someone had recently seen the Tokyo Quartet and felt they were watching “air viola.” We’ve been experimenting with a more ‘open-faced’ seating arrangement, in hopes that Aimee’s fantastic playing will be better heard!

2. Mark Summer, their cellist, sits in the traditional 2nd violin spot! There are lots of reasons they might do this. Perhaps Summer and first violinist David Balakrishnan, who are both founding members, like being close to each other and laying down the groove. Perhaps this allows for helpful diagonal visuals: cello-viola, violin-violin.

3. The quartet remains fairly still while they play. They SOUND like rock stars for sure, but they don’t always project a rock star intensity. Perhaps this is part of why Eric Edberg found the group to be less inspiring than he’d hoped. At the Chicago show, they really did look like they were having fun. Another confusing lesson for me, the quartet member who is often “moving around a lot.”

Notable quotes from the quartet’s banter:

Balakrishnan: And now, we will perform Mozart’s String Quartet, no. 40 … … just kidding. (I booed this.)

Kittel: As you see, we’ve ditched the music stands! And we’re going to let loose a little bit here. But our shirts are still tucked in, so don’t get too excited. (It’s true — their shirts WERE all tucked in.)

- Ellen

First photo by Jay Blakesberg.

The journey of students and teachers

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 11:51:00 -0400

If there’s one thing that being at the WCMS Festival this summer taught me, it’s that every musician is on his or her own journey. Teachers, mentors, parents and friends are there with us, nudging us this way or that way, exposing us to an idea, a piece of music, or a person who could change our trajectory forever. But at the end of the day, it’s really no one else’s journey.

As a teacher, I’m accustomed to feeling like a tour guide on my students’ journey. I’ve been traveling in the land of the violin for awhile, and I know some things they don’t know. I’ve made mistakes, and I can help my students avoid them. The way I play, the exercises I teach, the pieces I assign, the language I use, the attitude I expect — these are all major signposts along my students’ unique paths. As every teacher knows, this feels like a Very. Big. Responsibility.

But perhaps as teachers, we place too much emphasis on our own role. Perhaps we underestimate the intelligence and intuition of our students.

At the festival, I spent some time reconnecting with my old teacher Rohan. He recalled that I, at sixteen years old, marched up to him at GBYSO camp and asked if he would be my teacher. I remember this clearly, too. I had seen him coaching and performing, and was incredibly inspired. I knew immediately that I was ready to move on from my wonderful childhood teacher, and that Rohan was someone I wanted to work with. (Had I not studied with him, I would never be the musician that I am today.)

A few years later, when I chose my undergraduate teacher, I was in a completely different place. My mom remembers me saying, “I need a Russian!” — in other words, I wanted someone very strict who would devote serious attention to every aspect of my technique. I ended up with Connie Heard who, while American, did exactly that. And Olga Kaler, with whom I got my MM? Ukrainian — and absolutely “The Russian” I’d always dreamed of studying with.

Of course, since I made music my career, I know that I wasn’t a typical violin student. But looking at my beloved students, I know the time will come when they, too, will realize that they need something different from their teacher. I hope I can be graceful and wise, as my teachers were. I hope I’m lucky enough to play music with them again, years later. And I hope my students look back on all of their teachers with the gratitude that I do.

Rohan and me, grown-up teammates in the festival flamingo hunt. Photo, aptly enough, by Rohan’s current student Kim Vermilya.

Chamber music words of wisdom.

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:54:37 -0400

One of the people I learned the most from during my master’s degree was my orchestral conductor, Cliff Colnot. In Chicago and around the world, CC is well-known as a master of the art of rehearsal. He prepares all his ensembles to perform at an extremely high level of unity and detail. His scores are full of post-it notes, marking particular places that need rehearsal. After the DePaul Symphony had finished tuning, it would not be unusual for him to begin: “Tchaikovsky, fourth movement, measure four hundred and twenty-three. I’d like to hear the bassoons and the first trombone, please.” I would sit back in my chair and smile. It’s a wonderful, and unfortunately somewhat rare, experience to work with someone who is so prepared.

Now, imagine if, inspired by this example, I rolled up to Chicago Q Ensemble rehearsal with a score full of post-it notes and start rattling off all the problems I have and all the places I want to rehearse. “Let’s start with measure seventeen in the Haydn; I’d like to tune this passage, Liz and Aimee.” Yep — I’d deserve to be kicked out of the room! Of course, we all intuitively know this is ridiculous. All four members of the quartet are equally responsible for making a rehearsal plan. Often, we have different places we’d like to work on, different priorities. That’s because we have different brains and different sets of ears.

We work best when we balance our different priorities, respecting each other’s differences and keeping the best picture in mind. Say we’ve committed to working on unifying our bow strokes in a certain passage, and we’ve been working on it for a few minutes.

“Man,” Liz says, “we really need to tune those last three chords.”

“We do,” Aimee agrees. “Can we finish this issue first, before we start tuning?”

“Totally — let’s work on tuning when we’re done.”

This kind of balancing act happens between us all the time — the kind of dialogue that isn’t possible, or necessary, in an orchestra rehearsal. Professor Colnot once gave a seminar on chamber music rehearsal with the violinist Stefan Hersh. In the booklet they gave us, we read:

Effective chamber music rehearsal is a uniquely democratic group effort requiring a delicate balance of shared values … Striking an effective working balance in any group setting requires collective psycho-emotional sentience and well-honed interpersonal skills.

I am so grateful to work with people who have psycho-emotional sentience!

I’m so excited to play the last movement Schubert Cello...

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:26:00 -0400

I’m so excited to play the last movement Schubert Cello Quintet with the student participants at the WCMS Festival! It is a totally rousing, fun and boisterous movement, which I’ve always loved but never performed before. Schubert wrote an awful lot of notes for the first violinist to play, so I’m chipping away at the part, slowly but surely. In the meantime, I’m inspired by this video of the young Christian Tetzlaff and colleagues performing it. A very elegant performance! I love the way Tetzlaff plays these sparkling overlay passages while the second violin sings. Perhaps this means I’m really a second violinist at heart … - Ellen

We're blogging .... somewhere else!

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 10:48:17 -0400

Chicago Q Ensemble is guest-blogging over at the Worcester Imagineer Network for the next few weeks, as we gear up for our stint as the fellowship quartet at the Worcester Chamber Music Society. Cellist Liz has a great post up today. Enjoy!

The lofty goals of our training -- and then, everything else.

Mon, 16 May 2011 13:24:20 -0400

After our first major performance of Beethoven’s Opus 18 no. 5 last Thursday, Chicago Q got the wonderful opportunity to perform it again last night, as part of Kate’s final DMA violin recital at Northwestern. It’s always great to perform a major work for the second time — knowing for certain that you’ve done it before, successfully, is a liberating feeling. (P.S. That’s right — Kate is (almost) done with her doctorate! Major congratulations! We may start calling her Dr. Carter in rehearsal, just for kicks.)

On the ride home, Liz (our cellist) and I were talking about quartet intonation. Liz had been listening to some recent performance recordings, and feeling like we still have significant work to do in the intonation department, and learning whom to tune to at crucial moments. (Hint: she’s a particularly interested party because the answer is almost always, to the cello!) I completely agreed with her, and I mentioned how my own rush of adrenaline often compromises my ability to adjust tuning during performances. We talked about ways to address this: speaking with experienced quartet cellists, reading others’ ideas on tuning strategy, and — of course — continuing to rehearse and train our own ears at the highest possible level.

We both (well … almost, in my case!) have Master’s degrees in music performance and have spent the bulk of our lives immersed in highly technical matters such as these. In fact, Liz spent her MM degree at Wisconsin as cellist of the graduate quartet-in-residence. Yet amazingly, in the car, Liz said: “I feel like we’re still new at this!” And I knew exactly what she meant. Our entire education is spent in deference to the masters, the great ones who came before us — from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms to our revered teachers and conductors. It’s pretty hard to feel like you’re EVER ready to call yourselves professionals, to put yourselves out there, and to proudly display your artistic work in public. I’m super proud of Q’s ovarian fortitude in this department.

Then, this morning, I was checking out the live-blogging summary of the TEDX Michigan Avenue conference. We’re so bummed we had to miss this. Our awesome Chicago arts colleagues presented on all kinds of urgent matters: arts funding, audience building, audience/performer interaction, keeping ourselves relevant.

Questions like these are VITAL — and they’re the “other side” of Chicago Q Ensemble’s mission. How can we engage our audience? Which pieces will move the average listener? What makes a concert experience fun, accessible, meaningful for people? (At our most recent concert, we experimented with costumes, video elements, and audience-interaction.)

Then I realized these two things aren’t separate at all. Because of something else Liz happened to say last night. “When I know the audience is REALLY with us,” she said, “that’s when I feel free to play.”

She’s right. When the audience is engaged, the artists are free to do their best work. I never thought of it like this before. But in front of a sea of smiling, excited faces, I can relax. I can breathe. I can hear. And I probably do play better in tune.

- Ellen

On Generosity: All the People Who Made Q Possible.

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:14:18 -0400

This amazing post on generosity in the arts (specifically in theater) is an inspiring and amazing way to start the day. My absolute favorite part is this:

Regardless of where you are in your career as a theater maker, seek to mentor. Recognize that you have a responsibility to foster the passions and dreams and aspirations of others and there is almost always someone who has less experience in this business than you. As Hyde says, it’s only when we release our own gifts do they become ours—it’s in the giving that potential is actualized. Generosity transforms us into artists. To be an artist is a becoming not a being.

It rings so true for me personally, and for all of us at Chicago Q. We have been the very lucky recipients of generosity from so many different individual artists and organizations. When I reflect on it, this generosity has been remarkable. I am going to make a brief list:

Melissa Snoza from Fifth House Ensemble. She has consulted with us on our organizational structure and status, always there to answer questions and provide support.
Seth Boustead from Access Contemporary Music. He has provided me individually with several fantastic performing opportunities, and gave Chicago Q the chance to premiere Matt Pakulski’s piece this winter.
The Worcester Chamber Music Society and QX String Quartet. Thanks to the efforts of my beloved former teacher, Rohan Gregory, and their festival director, Krista Buckland Reisner, they are creating a personalized Fellowship program for us at their festival this summer.
The people of Grace Church, who invited us to perform on their series.
The folks of Dixon Strings, who hosted our December concert and have been staunch advocates and friends.
The amazing web designer Shawn Kelly, who recently photographed us and has our incredible new website in the works.
Friend and photographer Chelsea Goodwin, whose amazing photographs helped us make a splash when our ensemble first founded.
Spoke Gallery, who hosted our first concert for a song.
Tim and Marilyn Biasiello, who hosted our first house concert for nothing.
We can’t forget our amazing coaches: Michael Lewanski.
Roger Chase.
Julian Hersh.
Matthias Tacke.
Joe Clark, who wrote a piece for us .
Patrick Liddell, who created a four-movement string quartet in exchange for a one-hour recording session with us.
Austin Wulliman of the Spektral Quartet, whose prompt recommendation helped connect us to Kate, our new and beloved violinist.

This list just keeps getting longer. Without all of these people, I’m not sure we’d still be around.

There’s a flip side to this list, of course, which every organization has: the people we’ve mentored, or been generous with, ourselves. Because Chicago Q is still a pretty young and green organization, we don’t always feel like we belong in a mentorship position. But when I think about it, many of my younger colleagues have approached me to ask about the group. One student interviewed Liz, Aimee and me for her arts entrepreneurship class. And after our Dixon Strings concert, a very talented undergraduate cellist said to me, “So how did you do this? This is EXACTLY what I want to do.” Talking about our founding, and what we’ve learned so far, was a moment of mentorship.

Still, our list of helpers is astounding. We clearly owe the universe — big time — and we’ll keep working on paying those debts forward.

In the meantime - thank you.

- Ellen

Letter to eighth blackbird

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 22:06:05 -0400

What I Learned Watching eighth blackbird’s YouTube Channel on a Saturday Night:

1. They use the metronome. A lot. And it is hooked up to an enormous amp.

2. They sometimes don’t rehearse with a score and have to run around looking at each other’s parts to figure out what is happening. Like us!

3. They appear to be willing to do almost anything, including spend a lot of time with a choreographer teaching them various movement techniques.

4. They memorize insanely complicated music.

5. They look like they are having a LOT of fun.

This makes me all the more excited to begin rehearsals of Patrick’s piece tomorrow. I only hope we can throw ourselves into the performance of this music with half the virtuosity, gusto and good spirits that 8bb does!

- Ellen

Welcoming the newest Q!

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:02:00 -0500

This winter, we here at Chicago Q said a fond farewell to two of our founding members: violinist Adrienne Watkinson and clarinetist Yevgeny Dokshansky. Yevgeny’s travels have taken him away from Chicago, and both Yevgeny and Adrienne want to dedicate more time to their own individual artistic paths. Yev and A are our dear friends and colleagues. We couldn’t be more honored or humbled by all the work they did in the founding of our ensemble. We look forward to watching their careers grow - and, hopefully, to playing together in the years to come.

After Adrienne let us know her decision, the three remaining quartet members began a long search process for a new violinist. At times, we joked that it was like looking for a husband for all three of us.

We are delighted to announce that our quartet is now joined by violinist Kathleen Carter - and we feel complete again! Kate will give her first Q performances this spring and summer. Kate is finishing her doctorate at Northwestern, is assistant concertmaster of the Elmhurst Symphony and is an active soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. Her dissertation work is centered on performance psychology, so we expect she’ll be helping us with our nerves. Best of all, she has a passion for performance, and for sharing all kinds of music with all kinds of audiences. We’ll introduce you to Kate more personally in a future post!

So as the city of Chicago starts to thaw out (hopefully?), we’ll be redesigning our website, working on Beethoven, and learning Patrick Liddell’s new string quartet and video piece, written for us.

For now, please join us in warmly welcoming Kate Carter to Chicago Q Ensemble.

A big thank you.

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:31:00 -0500

Last night, Chicago Q Ensemble (and a packed house of sixty listeners) enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of Dixon Strings at our performance on the Ravenswood Concert Series.

Jeff Dixon runs a truly awesome violin shop, staffed by a crew of friendly, knowledgeable, approachable musicians and crasftmen. Our friend (and Dixon’s sales & acquisitions man) Christopher Ferrer honored Chicago Q Ensemble by making us the inaugural performers on their series.

This was their first time in the role as concert producers, and they did a tremendous job. The space is equipped with a nice piano, great stage lighting, and a warm acoustic.

Thank you to Christopher, Jeff, Quentin, Inga for doing so much to make this concert a great experience for the performers and the audience.

And thank you to each and every person who came out on a snowy night to support us and our composer of the night, Joe Clark!

Have you met our Ontologist yet?

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 13:51:00 -0400

Meet Patrick Liddell, aka Ontologist, one of our featured collaborators during the 2010-11 season. Patrick is a composer and video artist. We were so excited about his work that we asked him to write a piece that “talks back” to Beethoven — quite a daunting request for any composer! His work will be featured on our spring concert. Excitingly, members of Chicago Q will also be heard on his upcoming album!

Patrick’s work runs the gamut from high-art music and pop music, from sound-art to visual-art. Check it out, and get excited to hear and see his work in spring 2011.

Keeping music relevant

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:00:00 -0400

Today, several Chicago Q members had the pleasure of chatting with cellist, educator and friend Jill Collier. Jill earned her Master’s degree in a wonderful and unique program at the Guildhall School in London, which provides a kind of training in musical creativity and leadership that most conservatory-trained musicians have never experienced. The training involves improvisation, composition, collaboration/interaction with other musical genres, and audience participation and collaboration — among many other things!

Because Jill brings such amazing perspective and experience to performance and education, we were really itching to discuss our educational programming ideas with her.

During our meeting, Jill said a lot of things that really resonated with me. I was particularly struck when Jill told us that, in her experience, a lot of classically trained instrumentalists are sometimes unsure what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and whether it’s even relevant anymore. But when those same musicians get to interact and collaborate with an eager and open-minded audience, it’s an inspiring and refreshing experience — even for seasoned members of the London Symphony Orchestra!

We look forward to learning more about this fantastic approach to workshop leadership, and hope to bring you stories from classrooms and community spaces all over Chicago.

- Ellen

Musicians, getting savvy.

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:00:00 -0400

The Chicago Q Ensemble blog wouldn’t be complete without mentioning David Cutler’s wonderful book, The Savvy Musician, which helped get our ensemble up and running.

The book is full of awesome tips for marketing, press relations, building a website … even the all-important people skills that can often make or break a career in the arts. Most importantly, this book empowers all musicians to create a career outside the boundaries of orchestras and academia. We highly recommend this book to everyone in music!

Fortunately for all of us, Cutler keeps a blog, too. Check it out!

What is it about twentysomething ... musicians?

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 13:55:54 -0400

The New York Times featured this interesting article, What Is It About Twentysomethings?, in its magazine last week. The article is about a new movement brewing in the brains of some psychologists: a movement to classify our twenties as its own “developmental stage.” The article points to the enormous range of maturity and life experiences that, for example, a twenty-five-year old person might have. Some people, at the age of 25, are married homeowners with 2 children. Others might struggle to find employment, or choose to live with several roommates, or move back in with their parents, or go to graduate school. The article even suggests that people in their twenties need continuing developmental support to help get them on the “right track” for their adult lives.

The article got me thinking about twentysomething musicians, and other performing artists too. For lots of reasons, we’re less likely to follow the old-fashioned path of college graduation, employment, marriage and children. First off, we tend to spend a lot of time in school: a two-year Master’s degree in performance is becoming standard for classical musicians; and if you’re interested in teaching at the college level, you’re expected to have a Doctorate. Secondly, the job market for musicians is a cutthroat and often unpredictable game. You’ll frequently compete with hundreds of candidates for one orchestral opening … IF the orchestra ends up hiring anyone at all! For musicians pursuing a career outside the orchestra, it can take years to build a balanced, successful career that pays your bills.

In the future, I’d like to write more about the job market for musicians, and how I think music schools could better prepare young people for professional life.

By the way, Chicago Q Ensemble’s members are all in their twenties … for now.

When a critic gets too ... critical

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:06:00 -0400

Chicago Q’s clarinetist, Yevgeny, spotted this interesting article. It’s an editorial about the recent music critic controversy in Cleveland. Donald Rosenberg, music critic at the Plain Dealer, apparently became negative enough about the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Most that he was taken off the orchestra beat. He recently lost a lawsuit appealing that decision. The author of the article, also a critics, fears for the future of classical music when critics are not protected from the power of boards and donors.