Quartet’s sound benefits string program
If students plan to attend one program at Utah State University this year, this would be the one to start with, said professor Anne Francis of the Fry Street Quartet’s concert tomorrow night.
The quartet, which consists of Francis, William Fedkeheuer, Rebecca McFaul and Bradley Ottesen, will be playing Beethoven’s “String Quartet in D Major” Op. 18, no. 3, which the quartet played 2 years ago as part of a Beethoven cycle.
Also on the program is Dohnanyi’s “String Serenade and Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence,” a sextet which features Viktor Uzur of Weber State University and Claudine Bigelow of Brigham Young University.
Francis said the quartet won the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2000, plays in concerts all over the world,and has been brushing elbows with some of the biggest names in classical music for years. She said the quartet has come a long way since 1997, when it was formed in Chicago as a few friends getting together to play some chamber music in an apartment on Fry Street. Naming themselves for that first rehearsal space, the group eventually was able to get a three-year residency in Hickory, N.C., as part of the Rural Residency Program, which brought chamber music groups into smaller communities.
Francis said she refers to the stay in Hickory as “string quartet boot camp,” in which they were asked to do just about everything a quartet could be asked to do. They were the principle members of the Western Piedmont Symphony in addition to between six and eight hours rehearsing as a quartet every day. As if that weren’t enough, she said they performed around 85 educational concerts for schoolchildren their first year there.
Though the schedule was grueling and the pay wasn’t great, it all paid off in the end. During that first year in Hickory, Francis said they began winning chamber music competitions, which gave them some national recognition as a string quartet. They also gained professional management during that time, which meant that they began playing more professional concerts.
In the fall of their third year in Hickory, the quartet received a call from USU offering them a chance to be the string-quartet-in-residence here. Francis said the quartet was surprised to find out that a small, state university located in a city that none of them had ever heard of not only had a string quartet residency program – which is rare even among private universities – but that it was a good one.
Francis said for their audition process, the quartet came to Logan to play a concert and work with students and were immediately impressed with the quality and potential of the fledgling string program.
Upon their arrival at USU, the quartet was given free license as to what to do with the program. Francis said they worked a lot, and it paid off, the string department has grown considerably. According to the Caine School of the Arts website, the Fry Street Quartet performs masterworks of the string quartet literature. All of their proceeds benefit the USU String Scholarship fund.
“There is a certain amount of cohesion that is possible with a group running a program, rather than individual faculty members,” she said.
Francis said this attracts students. She said the number of string majors has grown from just a handful to 40-something in the eight years since they took over the program.
According to the website, string players at USU have a different experience with their studies here. With a professional string quartet as the faculty, there is much more focus on chamber music than one would find in many other music schools, which helps the students incredibly.
As part of their studies, the students are divided into small groups, usually quartets, and given a piece to perform. They rehearse together for four hours every week and receive coaching from a member of Fry Street, or Yi Ching Fedkenheuer, who is also a member of the string faculty.
“Not being under the baton of a conductor gives you the chance to flex your artistic muscles,” Francis said. “We see kids grow through chamber music more than almost any other outlet.”
But the Fry Street Quartet’s influence is not only seen in the music department. They play a number of concerts in the Manon Caine Russell Kathryn Caine Wanlass Performance Hall on campus every year. The first of this year’s is Sept. 28 at 7:30 p.m.
Francis said individuals should not be nervous to come because they’ve never heard a string quartet before.
“Even if a person doesn’t know much about classical music, this is the kind of concert that will get people excited about it,” Francis said.
– rex.colin.mitchell@aggiemail.usu.edu