1974 was a year of growth for the fledgling Audubon Quartet. We enthusiastically embraced our role seriously and with great enthusiasm, as a newly appointed Quartet in Residence at Marywood College, which involved both teaching and a concert series. Each week we drove down to Scranton to teach their music school students, coordinating our individual teaching schedules, to allow ourselves as much rehearsal time back in Binghamton. During that first year, we struggled with the logistical difficulty entailed in reconciling our residency obligations with the requirement that, as students of the Young Artis Program at SUNY, we had to live in Binghamton. There, we needed to fit in three-hour rehearsal sessions, prepare for weekly coaching by the Lenox Quartet, and take individual private lessons ourselves. We were also also expected to participate in a large group ensemble, consisting of the four student quartets in the Lenox program.
In addition to a series of concerts given by the AQ at Marywood College, we were obligated to participate in the Young Artist Program in Binghamton, which meant the presentation of a quartet performance by the AQ. Also, as part of the Young Artist Program, each of the AQ was expected to participate in a large group ensemble, consisting of the four YAP quartets involved in the program.
Even then, we did not suffer from a shortage of ambition, and in the fall of 1974, we arranged a small concert tour in Florida. This was a fun prospect for Larry and me, since were Florida natives. The tour included concerts in Central Florida during the end of December and beginning of January. This mini-tour included a concert at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, several soirees in private homes, a performance-clinic for the Florida Orchestral Association, held in Daytona Beach, and a concert at Stetson University in Deland, where we performed Mozart’s Quartet in B-flat, “Hunt”, K. 458, Ives’ Quartet No. 1, “Revival Service” and, to end the program, Schumann’s Piano Quintet with Paul Langston, the Dean of the School of Music. We found it rather clever to include the Ives, as Stetson University had a strong church music program.
After returning to our Marywood residency and the Binghamton program a little more seasoned by the reality of life in the performing world, we resumed our usual schedule as both students and teachers. We had already given 2 of the 4 scheduled concerts at Marywood College, with two remaining concerts scheduled for the spring. One of these included Dvorak’s “American” quartet. I have included a video of the finale of the Dvorak on this page.
During this period of our residency all of us seemed committed to the rigors of this ambitious schedule, and some had also taken on additional academic endeavors. I had signed up for graduate courses at SUNY to earn a Master of Music degree, which I ultimately received in 1976. Janet already held a Master’s degree. Larry, on the other hand, surprised us with the news that the ongoing and projected schedule was more intense than he had counted on, and announced that he would finish out the year and then turn his efforts away from the AQ to finish his SUNY Master’s degree.
After Larry’s departure from the Quartet, we undertook a reorganization and began a search to fill both the first violin and viola positions; ultimately we were joined by violinist Ronald Copes and violist Judith Geist.
During the 1975-76 season, Ron, Janet, Judy and I joined forces to create the next iteration of the Audubon Quartet. While all the obligations of the YAP program remained the same and the AQ increased its concert tour radius, this was the year that the Audubon Quartet made its New York City concert debut at Carnegie Recital Hall on February 1, 1976. The program included Mozart’s Quartet, K. 590, Hindemith’s Quartet No. 3 and Dvorak’s Quartet in d minor, Op. 34.
