ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Top U.S. Quartet

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31085, 14 June 1966, Page 14

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Top U.S. Quartet

The distinguished JuilHard String Quartet will start its New Zealand tour of seven concerts with a concert in Christchurch on Wednesday evening for the Christchurch Chamber Music Society. Quartet in Residence of the Juilliard School of Music in New York, the group was established in 1946 by William Schuman. The members conduct classes in ensemble playing, participate in discussions and student workshops, give individual instruction and, naturally, also present a number of concerts at the school, In 1962, they were also appointed Quartet in Residence of the Library of Congress in Washington, thus becoming the acknowledged First Family of Chamber Music in the United States.

Between all these commitments they go on tour. The quartet has participated in most major festivals and has undertaken many foreign tours, including one of 11 Asian countries for the American State Department In 1961 it was the first American quartet invited to visit the Soviet Union, and it arrived on its first New Zealand tour after making its second Soviet tour. The first violinist, Robert Mann, is a Juilliard graduate. He studied violin under Edouard Dethier in addition to composition. Among those who frequently performed his

works, was the late Dmitri Mitropoulos. After winning a Naumburg Award, Mr Mann made his debut in 1941, touring from then on as soloist as well as first violinist of the Albuquerque Festival String Quartet. He still appears as a soloist and has also recorded a number of solo works, among them the Bartok Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin. Earl Carlyss has recently joined the quartet as second violin. He has a tremendous amount of solo and ensemble experience. He studied at Juilliard with Ivan Galamian and earned a M.Sc. Raphael Hillyer, violist, studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Continuing his musical education at Dartmouth College, he majored in mathematics “on the side.” After having received his MA. from Harvard, he played with the Boston Symphony under Serge Kpussevitzky and the N.B.C. Symphony under Arturo Toscanini, also touring with the Stradivarius and N.B.C. String Quartets. ALSO COMPOSER The ’cellist, Claus Adam, was born in Indonesia, the son of an ethnologist and a lieder-singing mother. He attended schools in Europe, beginning his formal musical education at the comparatively late age of 14. His first professional appearance, how-

ever, was with a boys’ choir in Salzburg, Austria. He then came to the United States, earning a Philharmonic scholarship, winning the Gabrilowitsch Memorial Award and finally studying with Emanuel Feuermann. He served as solo ’cellist of the National Orchestral Association and the Minneapolis Symphony under Dmitri Mitropoulos, and later joined the New Music Quartet to which he belonged for seven yeans. He is an acknowledged composer; his Piano Sonata, among other works, was performed at the thirtieth anniversary celebration of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Salzburg. Since the Juilliard Quartet began its career in 1946, it has built up a repertoire of 135 works ranging from the classics—Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Bartok—to Ravel, Webern, Schoenberg. It is a particular champion of American Composers, bringing before an ever-increasing public music by Copland, Schuman, Sessions, Piston and Carter. It was the Juilliard Quartet that gave the world premieres of Elliot Carter’s Quartet No. 2 and Alberto Ginastera’s Quartet, the Humphrey Searle Quartet and Leon Kirchner’s Quartet No. 1. The quartet will give a concert in Nelson on Thursday evening.