SPA's Special Guest Artist

Hi! This is Juan-Miguel Hernandez, violist of the Harlem Quartet. I had a great time at the master class given by Marcus Thompson, our guest artist this year, and wanted to write about it on the blog.

Sunday July 5th we had the great pleasure of receiving Marcus Thompson, world-renowned violist, at SPA. Professor Thompson is a professor of viola at MIT and the New England Conservatory, and Artistic Director of the Boston Chamber Music Society. First off, we had a fun dinner talking about his recent trip to Alaska, which was especially exciting for the Harlem Quartet since we will be going there next April. Now we know what we need to visit when we go there, including the highest mountain in North America, Mt. McKinley! After dinner we had about 20 minutes before the master class and instead of giving M. Thompson time to digest and relax, we kept him busy and asked him to listen to us play. So we played the first movement of the Ravel Quartet for him.

The master class for the SPA students was a delight. It was informative and gave some of the students the chance to play under pressure. I found it particularly interesting when he talked about the use of ornaments in baroque music as one of the students was playing the Teleman Viola Concerto. I think the kids represented SPA very well and left a good impression for Professor Thompson's first visit here.

We ended the evening at the Head's house where we enjoyed good food and conversation. I learned that Professor Thompson performs regularly on the viola d'amore, which is like a viola but with 14 strings (7 strings on which you play, and 7 sympathetic strings beneath the first set of strings to create more resonance, I believe). This instrument was a popular baroque instrument but interestingly, Paul Hindemith (a modern composer and violist) wrote a sonata for viola d'amore. I now have a new goal of playing the viola d'amore. But first I need to acquire one....

Finally, my favorite part.... we sight-read Brahms string sextets to end the evening. And what an ending it was!! I had a great time playing beside Marcus Thompson and the rest of the awesome SPA faculty. Too bad time flies by so fast when you are having fun.

That's all for now, folks! Don't worry, be happy!

Instruments on Loan

I wanted to check in and post two great pictures of Mirna and Nadeerah with the instruments loaned to us by Douglas Cox. They sound great, and I'm glad that our students have had a chance to play on them. Here are the two of them after their performances at the mixed recital last night. Nadeerah performed the first movement of J.C. Bach's viola concerto in C minor, and Mirna played Viotti's 23rd violin concerto. Thanks again to Mr. Cox for his generosity!

Mixed Recital Rocks!

This is Chris Jenkins, Dean of SPA writing again. I was very excited to see our students' mixed recital on Tuesday night! We call a recital "mixed" when the program has a combination of chamber groups and solo performances. We also were fortunate enough to have a pianist, Ayako Yoda, to accompany the solo performers. I think that everyone played really well tonight, and I was very happy to hear both of the chamber groups coached by Desmond Neysmith, cellist of the Harlem Quartet. His students did a great job. You can see him here with one of his chamber groups; tonight, they performed the scherzo of Beethoven's quartet Opus 18 no. 2.

It was awesome to hear Mirna Lopez, violinist, and Nadeerah Lamour, violist, perform on instruments loaned to SPA by luthier Douglas Cox. We were really grateful that he decided to loan us instruments this year! Only four full days of SPA remain...

String Quartets in Action: Part II

Hi! My name is Emanuel Howard and I am a viola student at SPA this summer. On Friday night, I attended the Harlem String Quartet's recital. Their sound and unity is unlike any other quartet I have heard. And they have only been playing together for 4 years! The highlight of the concert for me was the Beethoven quartet Op. 59 No. 2, "Razumovsky." This piece, as Ilmar explained, is the second of 3 string quartets commissioned by Russian count Andreas Razumovsky. These quartets, which all feature a Russian theme are known as some of the hardest string quartets in the literature.

In concerts like this one, SPA through the example of our teachers, shows students how hard work can result in success in the competitive discipline that is the classical music world.