Aaaand we're back!

Greetings all! What better day than the first day of autumn than to say hello and give you a status update about the beginning of our new season. We all returned from our summer travels and performances last month, and have been hitting the books to be ready for an exciting start to 2014-15. And the last couple of weeks have already provided us quite a whirlwind of activity. Here's what we've been up to:

Celebrating with our friend, Julie
We were honored to be a part of the University of Delaware's Music Department Faculty Gala Concert on September 13th, and delighted to be starting our 5th year as Quartet-in-Residence at UD (more details on all our activities there to come very soon). But this concert was extra special, as it was a celebration of a wonderful pianist on faculty there, Julie Nishimura, who has been at UD for 25 years now. She put together performances with a variety of faculty artists, and SSQ got to play the opening movement of the glorious Schumann Piano Quintet to finish the first half. Luckily for us, we'll get to play the entire work with Julie at our Fall UD Concert, Friday, November 7th at 8PM (in the Center for the Arts, Gore Recital Hall)

We've also gotten a jump start with the fabulous UD chamber music students, having had our first master class with them this past week. Lots of great rep and wonderful musicians - it's going to be a good year.


Some new outreach
In collaboration with the Music School of Delaware and UD, we are now offering chamber music coaching and performances at the Archmere Academy in Wilmington, Delaware. Archmere is a wonderful preparatory school with devoted teachers and bright, driven students. There is a small group of fine string players, and we'll be working with them in chamber music coachings this year. After presenting a short concert to the entire student body a couple of weeks ago (they were an amazing audience!), we had our first meeting with the string students last week, and look forward to a fun and fruitful relationship.

We made a fun group effort out of reading an early Schubert quartet last Thursday.

Getting intimate in Philadelphia
Bet that got your attention! We were delighted to play at Philadelphia's World Cafe Live again, on September 14th. We had been at WCL for last year's CD Release and Season Launch party, and loved the venue and the people there. So, we decided to have a special kind of collage concert this time, centering around the ideas and emotions put forth so viscerally in Leos Janacek's second String Quartet, titled "Intimate Letters". In addition to the Janacek, we also played music by Mozart, Haydn, Grieg, and Andrew Norman, and were joined by a fantastic poet and reader, Craig Franson, who shared poetry by Coleridge and Shelley. It was a great deal of fun, and a nice way to launch into some repertoire that we will be taking around a lot this season.

Twas a beautiful sunny day in Philly for our concert - Larry had to work hard to not get distracted by all the joggers and cyclists going by the WCL window during the performance!

Sipping and savoring
Coming up tomorrow night is the first performance in a series we are very excited about, called Sip and Savor. This is a 3-part series in the intimate setting of Kennett Flash in Kennett Square, PA, where we will be delving into three major works, picking them apart a little and putting them in some musical and historical context (that's the sipping), and then performing the entire work (we hope you'll savor that part). Up first, tomorrow: the beautiful and ground-breaking String Quartet in g minor by Claude Debussy. Hope to see you there! (Wednesday, September 24, 7:30 PM)

More to come, for sure, but we thought we'd just let you know how thrilling a start to the new season we've already had!

Relax, refresh, and reload

Happy summer, friends of SSQ!

Summer for us Serafins is a bit of a scattered affair this year, with various events, festivals, vacations, work - but not all together as a quartet. While we'll miss each other, and will feel a sense of urgency when we hit the ground running in August for a rush of rehearsals to launch the 2014-15 season, our time away is also a refreshing time to expand our horizons as individuals and come back to quartet with a new wealth of experiences, inspiration, and maybe a little extra sleep.

We had a little bit going on in June, having a week-long rehearsal retreat, to push through some new repertoire that we "test drove" for a private house concert. It was good to get going with some music new to all of us, like the Janaček "Intimate Letters" Quartet and the Grieg g minor String Quartet, and revisit music that we all knew, just not necessarily together as SSQ. But now, we've gone to various places around North America for a variety of activities, professional and personal.

Kate will be spending a good bit of time at the home base, continuing her tireless and great work for the Music School of Delaware, as their President and CEO, and will also take time to travel for family visits and some performing (including a collaboration with her long-time recital partner, Tony Sirianni). She just had a lovely visit with her delightful and vivacious mother, Nancy!

Lisa is spending a number of weeks at the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, where in addition to performing orchestrally and as a chamber musician, she also acts as the orchestra's personnel manager. (no small job!) Whenever spare time allows, she also loves taking advantage of the great hiking and camping opportunities Colorado provides.

Esme has a variety of events planned this summer. Having already given a guest master class at the Primrose International Viola Competition and Festival in Los Angeles, she will be performing at the Techne Music Festival in Pennsylvania, at the Pikes Falls Chamber Music Festival in Vermont, and serving as a faculty member at the ArtsAhimsa Festival for adult amateur chamber musicians in Lenox, Massachusetts. She left a little time to go see her family in Canada, too.

Larry is also hopping around a fair bit. Currently accompanying his daughter at a Suzuki violin camp in Ithaca, NY, he will be heading to Techne Music Festival in Pennsylvania (and playing some with Esme!), where he serves on the faculty and as a featured performer. He will also be a guest performer at the International Double Reed Society Conference in New York City in August. In between all of that, he'll spend some time with his family in his slice of heaven, Silver Bay, NY, on Lake George.

But even apart, we're all still proud Serafins, and look forward to getting back together in August to gear up for an exciting and full upcoming season! We hope your summer plans treat you to all the rest and refreshment that you need, as well!

Home Sweet Home

SSQ was delighted to start our 2014 off with a bang this past weekend, performing the first of two concerts this season at the Arts at Trinity series in Wilmington, Delaware. This is the series' third year of existence, and the third year we've been honored to be a part of it.

An outside view of Trinity Episcopal, beautiful old style
nestled in a modern downtown.

Trinity from the inside - gorgeous visually
and acoustically.

Along with the excitement of performing Wolf's Italian Serenade and Mendelssohn's Op. 12 for the first time as a quartet, and the Debussy Quartet for the first time in our current SSQ configuration, we were ecstatic about the turnout, which was huge, even if it hadn't been a dreary, rainy evening. The place was packed, and the energy of the crowd was truly infectious. What makes this even more wonderful for us, though, is that Wilmington is home for the quartet.

While our work and lives external to the quartet keep us from being on tour a whole lot, we enjoy getting on the road to new places far and near. We have a short tour of Florida coming up this month, and in addition to the warm, sunny weather to look forward to, we're excited to share ourselves with new audiences who haven't met us yet. It's a really special privilege to go new places and have people show up to hear us!

But playing at home, for audience members, friends, and family that we've known for so many years - this is perhaps the most special thing we get to do. As the quartet grows and matures as an ensemble, we feel that our relationship and friendship with our local audience is part of our personal and ensemble growth, too. And to walk on and off stage to the smiling faces of our friends, neighbors, significant others - this is really thrilling. (and they clap for us, even if we forgot to do the dishes the night before!)

So, as happy and honored as we are to get to play all over the country, it's a special privilege to come home, too. So, for our local friends, we hope to see you at our "homes" again this spring, March 2nd at the University of Delaware and April 26th back at Trinity. We'll look for those smiling, familiar faces!

Cheers,
Larry