Newsletter Winter 2005
Pacifica Quartet's Mendelssohn Recordings Showered With Kudos
The Pacifica Quartet's new CD set of the complete works for string quartet by Felix Mendelssohn has won high praise from a wide range of music critics. “This box sets a new gold standard for performances of Mendelssohn's string quartets,” wrote St. Louis Post-Dispatch critic Sarah Bryan Miller, adding that “the Pacifica play with verve and understanding…” The Philadelphia Inquirer liked the Pacifica's “clean, smart, hot performances.” The Chicago Tribune praised the Quartet's “technical and musical command,” while the Chicago Sun-Times lauded the recordings' “exuberant, polished music-making.” The Strad called the CD set “outstanding,” and Gramophone praised the Pacifica's “finesse,” “clear and luminous tone,” and “authentic touch of brilliance.” ClassicsToday.com gave the recording its “10/10” highest rating for artistic and sound quality. Recorded by Cedille Records and released in April 2005, the three-CD set offers all seven of Mendelssohn's completed quartets, plus the four separate quartet movements published posthumously as Opus 81 (Cedille Records 90000 082).
Next Recording Project
On to the 20th Century! With its Mendelssohn project complete, the Pacifica Quartet is currently recording three quartets written between 1922 and 1931 - Paul Hindemith's Op. 22, Ruth Crawford Seeger's String Quartet, and Leos Janácek's Intimate Letters. The CD is scheduled for release by Cedille Records in 2006. |
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Layla Juliette Vamos is Born!
Simin and Brandon are the proud parents of a baby girl, Layla Juliette Vamos, born at 3:00 a.m. on September 24, 2005, weighing 6 pounds, 7 ounces. The whole family is doing well! After taking a month off, the Quartet resumed its teaching and touring schedule in late October. |
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| Layla Juliette Vamos, born September 24, 2005 |
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Personal Profile
Masumi Per Rostad
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How did you become a musician?
My parents weren't musical. My mother grew up in Japan and didn't have the opportunity to do things like study classical music as a child. I grew up in a tough neighborhood on the Lower East Side, and so my mother really wanted my brother and me to have an extra-curricular thing to do. She brought us to a music school and said, “OK, what instrument do you want to play?” I was 4 years old at the time, and I said, “What? What are we doing here?” After she listed some instruments, my brother chose piano and I chose violin. I didn't really know what a violin was! My music school, Third Street Music School Settlement, was like a second home for me, it was like a family. There's a whole community there of really great friends. I just went on a back-packing trip in Utah with a friend from there. My brother and I would go there every Saturday and spend the entire day, and then we'd go once a week for lessons. (Thanks, Mom!).
And how did you find you way to the viola?
My music school was offering a special deal. I was 12 years old at the time and signing up for the orchestra audition. There was a sign that said any violinists willing to play viola in the orchestra would be given a free viola to use and free viola lessons. I wasn't sure about the viola, but I knew what free was! It was serendipity. I just took to the viola. It suited me a lot better.
When did you know you wanted a career in chamber music?
It's something I've wanted since I started playing viola. The very first piece I played on viola was the Mozart 'Dissonant' quartet. I wrote the note name over every single note in my part so that I could figure out what the notes were. But I loved it so much, and that was really when I decided this was what I wanted to do.
What are your principal interests outside of music?
'Principal' is a hard term, because I have a wide variety of things that I like to do very much. Right now I'm kind of obsessed with architecture. My place is just full of all these architecture books and magazines, and I'm trying to learn as much as I can about it. I want to design my own home some day. Along the same lines, I'm also undertaking a project to make all the furniture in my house. I've made almost everything so far, except I've got this Corbusier chaise lounge - it connects to the architecture thing! I'm also a cyclist. I was very inspired by the Tour de France, so I rode 1,200 miles this summer.
What kind of music do you listen to when you're not listening to classical music?
I have an extensive LP record collection, of everything. And so many different things appeal to me, as long as they sound good. The sound system that I've been putting together is geared toward vinyl. I guess I'm kind of retro! It's my dream to have one of our recordings come out on vinyl. I keep talking to the engineer at Cedille Records about this, and he's like, “Come on now, Masumi.”
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| Not your everyday viola! Masumi with a viola d'amore. |
Do you have any particular favorites in the classical repertoire?
(Laughs). Are you asking about Boccherini? That's always my answer! I'm very interested in having us play a Boccherini quartet, but he's not my favorite. I don't go to favorite music, because whatever piece I'm playing on stage is my favorite at that moment. This is actually along the lines of the Quartet's philosophy as a whole.
What has been your favorite city on tour?
I feel the same way about cities as I do about music. When I'm in a city, and it's a city I really like, then it's my favorite city while I'm there. And then after that I'll be swept away by another city. I could list off a few I have really loved. Tokyo. I really enjoyed Reykjavik. I could see myself living in Vancouver or San Francisco, just for the beauty. And of course, New York City.
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| At Reykjavik airport with Gudrunn Oskarsdottir from the Arts Festival |
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Extended Tour of Europe
On November 4th the Quartet departed for a three-week concert tour of Europe and a return engagement to perform in London's famed Wigmore Hall, an unusual honor for a young quartet. Highlights of the trip included a debut performance in Brussels' Royal Conservatory and an innovative program in Wigmore Hall combining an actor's recitation of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and Pacifica's performance of Beethoven's Opus 132. During the European tour the Pacifica also performed works by Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Bartók, and Elliott Carter. |
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| Brandon and Simin by the little church in Iceland |
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Trip to Iceland
May-June, 2005
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| Boat trip in an Icelandic fjord ----- Cold California girl! |
Sibbi: There is an arts festival in Iceland that was founded when the pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy lived in Iceland and began inviting his high-profile musician friends to perform. With all these great musicians coming to Iceland, the city of Reykjavik created a two-week arts festival that happens every two years. They do traditional theater, art, and music but also cutting edge things. The festival director heard about the Pacifica's Carter cycle performances and asked me if we would like to come to Iceland. So that is how this trip came about.
Masumi: Brandon, Simin, and I flew from Chicago to Boston, where Sibbi was waiting for us on the Icelandic Airlines flight. There were huge delays and our plane got to Boston 4 hours late. When we landed, we had literally two minutes to make the plane to Iceland. Sibbi managed to hold the plane, but our luggage didn't quite make it. Mine came the next day, but Brandon and Simin didn't get theirs for 5 days.
Brandon: I was in the same clothes for a couple of days, and then I went out and just started buying new clothes every day. What am I going to wear today? I'll go to the shop! It's very expensive in Iceland!
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| Rehearsal before concert in Reykjavik |
Sibbi: The first thing we did when we arrived was play in a prison. Then after some concerts in Reykjavik, they sent us out to the northwestern part of the country to play a concert in a tiny town in the middle of the fjords and mountains. I have a lot of ancestors from that area - my family goes back to the Vikings who came in the 9th century. It's one of the most severe parts of Iceland, but it's very beautiful.
Brandon: After the concert Sibbi stayed behind while Simin, Masumi, and I were taken on a tour of the countryside. After we had been driving for a while, our guide said, “I want to show you this little church.”
Simin: It was really out in the middle of nowhere.
Brandon: There was nothing there, only one farm across the way.
Simin: We stopped, and a man came out of the little church. He and our guide talked to each other in Icelandic, and then our tour guide said, “He lives at the farm across the road, and he knows all about the Quartet. He's Sibbi's uncle!”
Sibbi: He lives on the farm where my grandfather and father were born.
Simin: That was an amazing coincidence. But actually, Sibbi is pretty famous in Iceland.
Masumi: We were invited to a reception the mayor was hosting at the Reykjavik town hall. It was kind of a formal affair, and after we met the mayor I said to Sibbi, “Let's go and check out the Icelandic scene.”
Sibbi: I wanted to show Masumi the famous bar scene in Reykjavik.
Masumi: It seems that the most crowded time is late at night. People start partying later. With the long days you don't get tired because the sun's out at midnight, so you think, “Oh, the day is still young,” and you feel fine. So we checked out a couple of places. We were just looking inside, people-watching.
Sibbi: And I was telling Masumi that everybody here goes out and there's no certain clique that goes to this bar or that - if you're a plumber or a politician, you're all together - and it's OK.
Masumi: So we went into the next bar and there's the mayor. She's all changed, she has this calfskin coat on, and she says “Hello, Sibbi!”
Sibbi: One of the pieces we played in Iceland was composed by my uncle, Thorkell Sigurbjornsson. Not the uncle they all met at the little church - he was a different one!
Brandon: It was a very good piece, and it was nice just because it was Sibbi's uncle, but he's an excellent composer. We got to know him quite well.
Sibbi: My uncle studied music at University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign, so we all have this connection. I was very pleased to have my colleagues there, everybody loved them.
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| Masumi by huge waterfall |
Dangerous terrain! |
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