Greetings from the road again!
I am always thrilled to travel, and this time I am en route to Cleveland with my new ensemble, the Larchmere String Quartet! My wonderful IU friends and colleagues, violinist Tim Kantor and violist Rose Wollman, along with myself and cellist Schuyler Slack from the Cleveland Institute, have joined forces as a string quartet and will perform our first audition tomorrow; with the help of Bartok, Beethoven, and Haydn, we will hopefully find ourselves spending a few amazing weeks this summer at the Banff Festival!
Getting to know the string quartet literature has been such an exciting addition to my musical life. Thanks to my new toy, an ipod(!), I can listen to the Razumovsky quartets back-to-back with my favorite Radiohead songs while walking to school or ballroom practice. And not only am I expanding my personal library of great music, I am also deepening my understanding and appreciation for the master composers in a way I never have before. On a more technical level, working as a four-member string unit has heightened my ear's sensitivity to issues like intonation, balance, and color, which must be used expressively in as sophisticated a way individually as collectively. What a worthwhile challenge!
Meanwhile, I am watching the days fly by as my final semester at IU gets into full swing. My 21st birthday arrives in just one month, and the ongoing preparations for new music concerts and recitals make the weeks seem short. Luckily, I still have time to practice several days a week with the university ballroom dance team, and I also look forward to working at the elementary school again soon. Indeed, I am really going to cherish these last few months being at my amazing school and with my incredible friends and colleagues!
All for now.
~Madalyn
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