1976-77 (Year of Competitions)

In May 1976, Ron informed the group that he was moving on to another position and would be leaving our Quartet.  In addition, Judy also decided to leave and later joined the Philadelphia Orchestra, where she continues to play to this day.

The year earlier (1975), when we auditioned Ron Copes, we also auditioned Dennis Cleveland who was first violinist of the Columbus Quartet at Otterbein College in Ohio.  We made the decision to invite Ron to join the Audubon Quartet.  At the time, we made the decision to invite Ron to join the Audubon.  After Ron and Judy left the AQ, I convinced Janet that it would be worth our time to go to Columbus and have another reading session with Dennis. We had also put the word out that we were looking for a violist, and were given the name of Patricia McCarty, a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, as a person who might be interested to read with us.

The four of us met in Columbus in June and read quartets from morning until night for a couple days. The sessions went very well, and we left Columbus believing that the next iteration of the Audubon Quartet was assured.  That summer, Janet and I were hired to serve on the faculty of the Brevard summer music festival.  Dennis was performing at the Grand Tetons orchestra festival, and Patti had been invited to Marlboro.

In July, we received word that Patti had decided against joining the Quartet,  and this made Dennis question his commitment.  Janet and I finished our festival in North Carolina and hurried back to Binghamton to figure out a new plan.  That summer, Toby Appel, violist of the Lenox Quartet, had attended Marlboro as one of the older playing group (affectionately known amongst the younger players as an “alter cocker” despite his being relatively young to play in an established group like the Lenox).  Toby had returned to Binghamton to resume his duties with the Lenox, when I called him to get his suggestions for finding a violist.  He told me that he had been very impressed with Doris Lederer, who, like Patti, was part of the younger Marlboro group that summer. He gave me her phone number in Seattle and I called immediately, only to reach her mother and be told that Doris was asleep and could not be disturbed! My phone rang shortly afterwards with Doris on the other end, asking about the quartet we were forming. She also told me that she would probably not be interested, as she was heading back to Philadelphia and had plans to finish her studies at the Curtis Institute, but would be interested in meeting for a reading session.

At the end of August, we went to Philadelphia to meet Doris at her apartment, where we read quartets for hours.  I especially remember reading the Brahms Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 67, which spotlights a viola solo in the third movement. We thought it would be good to see what Doris could do with that.  I remember being surprised at how hurriedly she played her solo line, even though the marking is “agitato”.  I turned to her and asked, “don’t you think your interpretation was a little fast?” Her confident reply was “no”.  We took this as an indication of an interpretive strength of character which, along with the sincere quality of her playing and a richness of tone remain hallmarks of her playing until this day!

After the reading session with Doris, we left Philadelphia exhausted and hopeful.

Doris agreed to join Dennis, Janet, and me to reconstitute the already-named Audubon Quartet, and we all decided to relocate to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where we would be performing a concert series and teaching at Marywood College.

In 1974 the Young Artist Program, which the AQ was part of, had hired a coordinator named Mary Gallagher to arrange local concerts and events throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania, consisting primarily of approximately 50 outreach concerts in the public schools. The school programs, along with others given in the community and frequent appearances in Binghamton, allowed the newly reformed Audubon Quartet to gain recognition in the region while engaging in intensive daily rehearsals to build its concert repertoire.

In May 1977, our hard work paid off when the Quartet participated in its first international string quartet competition, held between May 20 and 29 in Evian, France. Also competing were string quartets from England, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, and Romania.

We came prepared to perform in all the rounds. Our program was divided into two parts. For the Contemporary portion, we chose a string quartet composed by American composer Larry Moss in 1975. For the Traditional portion we performed the compulsory first movement of Mozart’s F major Quartet, K. 590; Haydn’s Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 64, No. 6; and Beethoven’s Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 130, with the Grosse Fuge as the finale movement.

 

The Audubon Quartet returned to the United States with a first prize in the Contemporary music category, a second prize in the traditional music category, and a taste for future competitions.

Back home, we began the chore of linking up with concert management. For us, it was important that the Audubon Quartet began reaching out to larger audiences in other parts of the country. Also, during this time, the we decided to make a break with the Young Artist Program in Binghamton and form our own relationship with Marywood College.

Word of the Audubon Quartet success was quickly spreading, new contacts were being forged, and old contacts rekindled.  One important contact was Tim Carter, a musical friend and double bassist who had helped to start a chamber music festival at Mt. Gretna, Pennsylvania’s version of the famous New York Chautauqua. Tim introduced us to the Director, Carl Ellenberger, a flutist who had trained at Eastman before turning to a medical career, and we were invited to play our first concerts there in June of 1977. With the exception of one summer when we planned to travel abroad, the Audubon Quartet appeared at Music at Gretna every summer until 2011.

The Quartet spent the first summer at Gretna as a core group, playing with multiple guest artists, including principal wind players from the Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Chicago Symphonies. The concerts, broadcast regionally by NPR, were held weekly, ending around Labor Day.

In July of 1977, while sitting in the local ice cream shop at Mt. Gretna, a call came on the establishment payphone from the White House. President Jimmy Carter’s staff had tracked down our whereabouts to see if the AQ would be available to perform at the White House on the occasion of newly-elected Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s first visit to the United States.

Naturally, we were excited and agreed to take leave of the Gretna Festival at once and drive to Washington, DC for the concert. In those days, we simply drove our van past the guardhouse directly up to the White House and parked. Things have changed considerably since then!

In the fall of 1977, we returned to our duties at Marywood College, buzzed about the Gretna Summer Festival, the White House concert, and also about potential future international competitions. The AQ decided to apply to the Munich International String Quartet Competition, which was being held that October. We prepared an ambitious program, which included a compulsory piece and a large selection of works representative of the quartet literature, especially Beethoven quartets.

Arriving at the Munich train station was especially exciting, because it was Oktoberfest in Germany, and there was great energy in the air. We were met by car to take us to register for the competition. By chance the members of the Quartet Daniel from Israel, who we met in Evian, were also waiting to be taken to register. In the car, we struck up a conversation, sharing our excitement that we had just played for Prime Minister Begin only a couple months earlier. Members of the Israeli quartet started to laugh. Confused, we asked why they were laughing. One of them remarked, “Begin hates classical music!” Whether true of not, we were surprised, as we hoped that we were contributing to international diplomacy.

While it was thrilling to compete with so many young quartets, we were eliminated after the first round. There was a requirement for the competing groups to choose between the Haydn Quartet, Op. 76 No. 2 and the Boccherini Quartet in G minor, Op. 33. It so­ happened, we were the only quartet at the competition to choose Boccherini. Our program was heavily predicated on the expectation we would make it into further rounds, but alas, we were wrong! It turned out that Munich during Oktoberfest was a very lively place, and there were many beers to sample, drawing our tastes buds and our attention, and apparently that of the judges as well, away from the early elimination.

                                                  Small fragment of the Boccherini Quartet in G minor, Op. 33, performed by the Audubon Quartet in 1977 for television purpose.

A month later, in November, the we travelled to Brazil on a grant from the Institute for International Education to compete at the Villa-Lobos International String Quartet Competition. There, the Audubon Quartet won the Gold Medal. In many ways, the most important prize was that we had earned enough respect in the music world to hopefully gain a place on the roster of the Joanne Rile Concert Artist Management, based in Philadelphia.

Audubon Quartet live performance in Rio de Janeiro in 1977 at Villa-Lobos International Competition, Villa-Lobos Quartet No. 17, IV. Allegro vivace (the AQ members in their 20s at this time)