Departments
Arts
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Week of 7 November 1997 |
Vol. I, No. 11 |
Arts
Take four with the Muir
By Judith Sandler
The Muir String Quartet, in residence at the School for the Arts since 1983, is such an integral part of the musical scene today that it's easy to overlook the fact that it was formed only in 1979. Four young musicians fresh out of the Curtis Institute of Music started playing the music they loved, and within two years they had become a widely known ensemble. The Muir captured two of chamber music's most valued honors -- first prize at the 1980 Evian Competition and the 1981 Naumburg Award -- and even played at the White House, a performance featured on the PBS broadcast In Performance at the White House.
The Boston Globe has been unambiguous in its appreciation: "The Muir [is] a great virtuoso quartet that plays with sumptuous tone, exhilarating involvement, and extraordinary unanimity of purpose."
"The Muir Quartet is one of the outstanding ensembles today," says Roman Totenberg, SFA professor of violin and cochairman of the string department. "Our students are fortunate to have these splendid musicians as coaches, teachers, and role models."
Members of the Muir appreciate their own "coaches, teachers, and role models" and say they recognize their responsibilities in those positions. "We are fortunate to have worked with some wonderful teachers and to be passing on the European musical and interpretive traditions that otherwise would die," says cellist and Associate Professor Michael Reynolds. And he finds SFA students receptive. "One of the great pleasures of our Boston University residency is having the opportunity to work with so many talented students."
In addition to their Boston University responsibilities -- individual lessons, coaching, master classes, and the Tsai Performance Center concert series -- and the responsibilities of performing and touring with the quartet, violinist and Associate Professor Peter Zazofsky, violinist and Assistant Professor Wei-Pin Kuo, violist and Associate Professor Steven Ansell, and Reynolds also maintain individual careers.
Principal violist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since last fall, founding member Ansell relishes his multilayered professional life. "From the age of 10 I knew I wanted to be in a string quartet," he says. "I've been living that dream for nearly 20 years, and now I also have this great position with the BSO, which enriches my life in the quartet."
Reynolds, the Muir's other founding member, appears as a solo recitalist throughout the Northeast, directs the Montana Chamber Music Festival, and runs EcoClassics, a nonprofit recording label dedicated to creating CDs for the benefit of conservation organizations.
For Zazofsky, first violinist of the Muir since 1987, who has an active solo career in North America, Asia, and Europe, teaching has expanded his musical horizon. "Over the past 10 years I have developed stronger ideas about pedagogy," he says. "I have blended my own experience with the teachings of my teachers."
Kuo, another Curtis alumnus, joined the Muir in 1995 and performs with other ensembles, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He has played with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Taipei Symphony.
The diversity these multifaceted musicians bring to the quartet adds a vitality, depth, and richness to the ensemble. But its members must struggle with the demands of their complex professional lives. "We have to be very efficient," says Zazofsky. For Reynolds, "Our lives are a balancing act. We have to wear a lot of different hats. It's frenetic, but it's a lot of fun, and there's a marvelous variety and creativity in it."
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The Muir String Quartet |
Still at Large
Recent paintings by SFA's McCann at GSU Gallery
By Joan Schwartz
Giant reclining figures dominate Margaret McCann's paintings, each body ensconced within a tiny but detailed landscape. Whether the setting is reminiscent of ancient Rome, a contemporary water park, or a modern cityscape, the figures evoke an enigmatic human presence that raises basic questions about our relationship to time and space.
According to McCann, whose one-woman show Still at Large opens next week in the GSU Gallery, the pieces reflect her experience as an American living for eight years in Rome.
"There was a feeling of temporal and spatial dislocation that was produced by seeing these ancient buildings within the context of a modern city that corresponded not only to the dynamics of cubism, which I love, but also to the displacement I felt as an American living within a very different culture," she explains.
McCann is currently assistant professor of painting at SFA. She originally went to Italy on a Fulbright-Hayes Grant to study depictions of saints, and stayed to teach drawing and painting in Rome for the Rhode Island School of Design, St. Mary's/Notre Dame, John Cabot University, Trinity College, and Loyola University. While teaching a course entitled Drawing Monuments, she says, she became fascinated by ancient architecture and began incorporating monumental images into her paintings.
Hugh O'Donnell, director of the visual arts division at SFA, characterizes McCann's work as "both metaphysical and strangely mundane at the same time. There is an extraordinary stillness and profound irony to her work that preserves a sense of timelessness and disturbing beauty."
McCann has an MFA in painting from the Yale School of Art and a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis. She also attended the New York Studio School. Her work has appeared in exhibitions both in the United States and Italy.
Still at Large opens on Wednesday, November 12 and continues through Sunday, December 7, at the GSU Gallery. The gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 7 p.m., and will be open on Monday evenings, November 10 and 17, from 6 to 9 p.m. The gallery will be closed for Thanksgiving on November 27 and 28. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, November 13, from 5 to 8 p.m.