I was fortunate yesterday to perform in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Music in the Galleries series with some of my colleagues from Curtis, including violinists Nigel Armstrong and Ike See, and cellist Arlen Hlusko. Music in the Galleries is one of my favorite Curtis engagements not only for the ambiance of the PMA's galleries and the opportunity to interact with visitors, but also its adventurous programming and juxtaposition with artwork. The series is set up differently than a concert hall, with informal stools and freedom to wander the galleries during the performance. We performed in the Modern and Contemporary Art wing in front of Thomas Hirschhorn's "Camo-Outgrowth (Winter)", completed in 2005, which occupies an entire wall by itself. Hirschhorn's work consists of 119 globes decorated with physical outgrowths and covered in camouflage tape, set on shelves similarly covered in camouflage tape with newspaper and magazine cutouts of images of war, camouflage in fashion, and other images from the early 2000s. The museum writes, "This piece... is a meditation on conflict and our inexplicable fascination with it... the pervasiveness of camouflage-- from fashion to war-- attests to the troubled relationship with violence that seems to characterize modern times." Other exhibits in the wing were just as hefty, including a large mobile of four life-size, sawed-off pairs of heads that would occasionally (and frighteningly) bob and swing.

The program, entitled "Different Trains: String Quartets," included Britten's Three Divertimenti for String Quartet, and Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 7 in F-Sharp Minor. Before playing, I gave an introduction about both pieces. Britten completed his Three Divertimenti in 1936, when he was twenty, after a composition process that saw the piece in many different forms. He had originally conceived of these three movements as part of a five-movement character sketch of five classmates. The three movements (March, Waltz, and Burlesque) are distinct in character but consistently embody similar elements of energy, youthfulness, charm, and irony. These elements are also pervasive in Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 7, which he wrote in memory of his first wife Nina in the same year that he was forced to join the Communist Party. We offered a performance of both works on three different concerts throughout yesterday afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed each performance and the differing vibe with each group of museum visitors.

I love this series and I hope it continues for a long, long time. Pairing music and art offers cross-cues for experiencing both mediums-- art can inform the music, and the music offers aural cues to provoke thoughts on the art. This isn't to say that there is only one way to interpret works of either medium. Rather, this creates an active, artistic experience for both museum visitors and the performers. As performers in this day and age, this is our challenge-- we must always think about how we can create new and unexpected ways to share our art with the public, and consider ways in which we can offer our own artistic commentary through presentation and programming. In the future, I'd love for this series to figure out a more active, welcoming way for the listeners to engage in dialogue with the artists, and vice versa. If you were at Music in the Galleries yesterday afternoon, I'd love to hear your thoughts on your experience!

A huge thank you to Curtis and the Philadelphia Art Museum for ongoing inspiration and a wonderful afternoon, and certainly to Nigel, Ike, and Arlen for their incredible artistry and friendship.

Welcome to the first entry of my blog! My confession: I'm not one for diaries (I managed to lock and lose the key to all diaries I kept as a kid, including this amazing hardcover journal with cats on it) so I lay no lofty promises to what the content of this blog will bear. However, I do promise that this will be a home for my thoughts and questions, as well as a way to share my upcoming engagements with you.

I spent yesterday evening in the company of my quartet, with whom I performed Brahms' String Quartet in A Minor on Monday evening at the Curtis Institute of Music. I am always honored to work and to play with such talented and inspiring musicians as these three, but this time we met over a delicious burger scouting/outing at Dandelion, on 18th and Sansom Streets in Philadelphia. We met to hang out and eat burgers, of course, but also to discuss our performance of the Brahms A Minor Quartet and to discuss possible pieces to play next.

I came away with the reinforced reminder that as musicians, our music and our work are lifelong endeavors. Brahms's A Minor Quartet is a beast, and we certainly encountered challenges, beautiful moments, and mini-triumphs in working on it. Yet first performances of works are just that-- first performances. These first concerts are frustrating sometimes because we've spent hours working on all sorts of technical and musical aspects of a work, only to have nervous butterflies, strings going out of tune, or unexpected circumstances occur. These first concerts are also tremendously fun and rewarding because it's the first time we are performing and sharing a work. Recently, I listened to the Guarneri Quartet's performance of the same quartet, which is full of melancholic and joyful characters. Their recording of the piece might have constituted the 100th, 200th, or 300th time they'd performed the work, but it certainly would not have been the same performance every time. Rather, each performance captures an unique instance of the work. Perhaps by the time I'm fifty, I will have played and loved a piece hundreds of times as well, and I'll probably still be frustrated by certain aspects of a performance. And that's the ongoing personal and artistic development that we'll face our entire lives as musicians-- how can I best capture and relate what the composer intended & what the music asks for? How can I share this with others in the most convincing way possible? To be honest, these are questions that compel me to keep searching, learning, and playing music everyday. A first performance is just the first step, and one's understanding of a work can only grow from there.

By the way, the burger at Dandelion is delicious, and I'm excited to dive into Beethoven's String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135 with the quartet next week!