Newsletter Summer 2006
Pacifica Quartet Receives Avery Fisher Career Grant
At a ceremony in New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on May 2, the Pacifica Quartet was honored with the award of a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. The Avery Fisher Artist Program provides career grants to talented young musicians considered to have great potential for major careers. During the past 30 years many successful musicians, including Gil Shaham, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, David Shifrin, and Leila Josefowicz, have been identified early in their careers by the Avery Fisher Artist Program and supported with career grants. The Pacifica Quartet is only the second chamber ensemble in the 30-year history of the program to receive an Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Recipients are nominated by the Program's Recommendation Board, which is comprised of nationally known instrumentalists, conductors, composers, music educators, managers and presenters. The award ceremony included a concert performance by the Pacifica which was taped for broadcast by WQXR, New York City's classical music station, on May 8th.
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Personal Profile
Simin Ganatra |
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When did music become important to you?
I knew I loved music from an early age. When I was 5, some of my kindergarten friends in Los Angeles were starting Suzuki violin lessons. I’d seen a violin and thought it looked fun, so my mom signed me up. My family wasn’t musical at all. My dad is from Pakistan, and he played Indian classical music at home, but he wasn’t familiar with Western classical music. My mom hadn’t had much exposure to classical music either, but she was really supportive. She was the kind of mom who put her kids in lots of things. I did karate and ballet, and violin was one of those things at the beginning. By the time I was 8 if somebody asked me what I wanted to do, I would say, “I want to be a violinist.”
Then when I was 14, I decided to study with the Almita and Roland Vamos in Minneapolis. I had a really good teacher in Los Angeles—I’ve always been lucky to have good teachers. But I met the Vamoses at a summer music festival, and I felt I would really improve a lot if I went to study with them. So that was the big turning point, when I decided for sure that I wanted a career in music. But it meant leaving home early, and when I asked my parents for permission to go to Minneapolis at first they said, “No way are you going halfway across the country at your age!” But I talked them into it, and it was so great that they let me go. I studied with the Vamoses in Minneapolis for four years. I finished high school there, and I was lucky enough that just when I was getting ready to go to college they decided to move to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. So I followed them there and it really worked out well.
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| Teaching master class at Music Institute of Chicago |
When did you know that you wanted to form a string quartet?
Pretty early on, actually. I was always looking for people to play quartets with. A childhood friend of mine from Los Angeles and I decided we were going to start a quartet when we graduated, so we formed the Pacifica Quartet with two other people in Los Angeles. Our first incarnation lasted two weeks—but we had a name! I knew it would be great if Brandon joined the Quartet—he and I had played a lot together. He was in the resident quartet at Yale studying with the Tokyo Quartet, and I didn’t want to call him because it’s bad etiquette to steal another quartet’s cellist! But I heard from his mom that he might be looking for a change, so then I called him, and he agreed to join the Pacifica. So we were really formed at the end of 1994. Our first public performance was in April 1995.
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| Birthday celebration at Fontana Chamber Arts |
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Gramophone Features Pacifica Quartet
The Pacifica Quartet appeared on the cover of the April 2006 edition of Gramophone magazine. In its lead article, the Pacifica was described as "one of the finest and most energetic quartets of the younger generation" and was the only American quartet on a list of "five new quartets you should know about." The Quartet was especially lauded for its work to expand the traditional audience for string quartet music. |
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New CD Release
Watch for the Pacifica Quartet's recording of Paul Hindemith's Op. 22, Ruth Crawford Seeger's String Quartet, and Leos Janácek's Intimate Letters, scheduled for release by Cedille Records in September 2006. It will be available at www.cedillerecords.org, Amazon.com, Tower Records, and Barnes & Noble. |
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Dramatic finish at Music in the Vineyards
Photo credit - Chick Harrity |
How did the Pacifica happen to come to the Midwest?
We were offered our first residency by the Music Institute of Chicago in Winnetka, Illinois in September 1995. We were so lucky to get that, because we were complete unknowns. I think the hardest thing in starting a quartet is having that first place to be where you can make enough to pay the rent. We taught at the Music Institute and we did a lot of outreach and educational concerts for them in the public schools, which was great because we got a lot of performing experience. That was really fantastic for us. We all lived on the north side of Chicago, sharing studio apartments.
How does the Pacifica’s collegial style influence your approach to music?
Quartets function very differently, and I think of our quartet as being very democratic, so we all pretty much discuss equally how things are shaped. But it’s different every day. Some days we all chime in, some days one person will feel really strongly about a particular movement or way of phrasing. When we start rehearsing a piece there’s lots of discussion, but as we get closer to a performance date we kind of let each other decide how to play and try to allow a degree of independence when we perform. I think this is a strength of the Quartet, and it’s something that’s changed over time. One mistake young quartets make is trying to have every little thing planned out, because you want everything perfect. But in some ways that can make you feel stuck and you can’t just play. So we’ve become more spontaneous over the years. It’s a trust, too, trusting that your colleagues are going to shape the music nicely and you’re going to go with them no matter what. I think that’s definitely evolved and made us a better quartet.
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What kind of music do you like to listen to when you have some free time?
That’s a hard one because I’m such a classical music geek, I just always listen to classical music. That’s what I like—I listen to a lot of orchestral stuff, I listen to string quartets, I love solo piano a lot, and I love piano trios. I’m really into a Schubert disc right now with Vladimir Ashkenazy, Pinchas Zuckerman, and Lynn Harrell.
What are the Quartet’s ambitions?
I think right from when we started our goal was to be one of the great American quartets, and that’s what keeps us working and working. We’re lucky because the repertoire is so vast you never get bored with it. So I think just to be playing as much as we can and getting better and better—I would say that’s the biggest goal. And it’s a weird goal because you never reach it.
How has Layla’s arrival changed your routine?
Well, Brandon and I don’t sleep—that’s the big change! But I feel that professionally it hasn’t changed things much. I have a lot of support—my mom and my oldest sister are here in Champaign and we have an au pair for the traveling—so my schedule in terms of practicing is pretty much the same. Actually, it’s made things better! I am less nervous at concerts because I have a baby to come home to! It’s definitely added a wonderful dimension to life. Having children is the most amazing thing. Every day is so new and exciting!
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| Sibbi teaching master class at Music Institute of Chicago |
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