Brahms and Crawfish

nospam@example.com (Julie Yoon) — Mon, 28 May 2007 18:48:56 -0400

We spent the last part of May and our 06-07 concert season in Fayetteville, TX at a music festival founded and inaugrated this year by our good friends, Hakan Rosengren and Katherine Powers. Hakan, who you can see below, is an amazing clarinetist with whom we recorded both the Mozart and Brahms Quintets (check out our "music" page on the website).

Now, what is in Fayetteville, TX you say? Well...not very much (pop.
about 300)...but seeing the beautiful rolling hills with blooming
wildflowers and the quaint little town in the midst of unending acres of land, one feels that it is indeed an inspiring place for audiences and
musicians to share and make music.

It was an intense 9 day period where we rehearsed and performed 10 pieces. After gaping at the vast repertoire and the full rehearsal schedule, we realized this was exactly what we wanted. How else would a string quartet want to spend an enormous amount of time than learning or redscovering music it loves in a beautiful setting........or hanging out eating......crawfish......oh, that's later.

There were 5 concerts in all that drew in good crowds from all over Texas as well as some people from overseas.

Meet Hakan. He's packing up after a Brahms Quintet rehearsal.

Here we are at the local Art Guild introducing ourselves to smaller audience members. "Becca plays the violin which is the highest instrument of a string quartet. Can anybody guess who plays the lowest instrument? That's right! It's Greg, and he plays the cello. Cello is the lowest instrument of a string quartet, and you can remember this because it's called a ceLOW."

....And after the performance....

Becca slept. But Greg got sleepy and wore a teepee.

Rehearsing Prokofiev's "Hebrew Themes" with Hakan and Michelle Schumann. We were very happy to meet Michelle on this trip. She's a marvelous pianist and a great person. Aside from her busy concert career and her university job, she's also the Artistic Director of Austin Chamber Music Center.

Okay...finally the crawfish.

Getting ready to open an afternoon concert with Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" String Quartet followed by Mozart's Clarinet Quintet. It was an unusual program order since traditionally one starts a concert with a lighter piece like the Clarinet Quintet rather than an intense one like the "Death and the Maiden." But it worked well, and the difference between darkness and light was more emphasized hearing the Mozart after Schubert. That same night we played a concert with entirely different repertoire. When we weren't rehearsing or performing, most of the day was spent conserving our energy.

Final photo After the last concert of this year's Fayetteville Chamber Music Festival. Congrats to Hakan and Katherine for a successful inaugural year.

Crawfish again and feeling a bit ill.

Chiara String Quartet - Photo Journal

Brahms and Crawfish