the inaugural
May 9, 1999 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Western Connecticut State University,
Danbury, Connecticut
(about an hours drive from New York City, two hours from Boston)
This workshop will involve:
Due to the individual nature of the coachings and master classes the seminar is limited to the first 32 participants.
Please call John Dexter at 212.874.4037 for further information.
Name ___________________________________ Instrument ______________________ Address _______________________________________________ Apt # ____________ City _____________________ State _____ Zip ______________ Phone ____________ Have you been to KentMusic? Y ___ N ___ Planning to attend this year? Y ___ N ___Please include your check with the form to ensure a place. Checks can be made out to "MSQ Enterprises, Inc." No refunds for cancellations after May 1st. 50% refund for those made previous to that date. Completed applications should be sent to:
John Dexter
115 West 73rd Street, Apt 7A
New York, NY 10023
Accepted applicants will receive maps, travel and accommodation information, and detailed schedules.
March 2, 1999
Greetings from the Manhattan Quartet! We appreciate your taking valuable Bartok practice time to read this letter!
With each performance of the 6th Quartet this season, we find ourselves thinking ahead to the summer's work at KentMusic and becoming excited about its many possibilities. Several of you are calling requesting help and advice and, I must say, aside from sending photocopies of our parts, we are very happy to answer questions and five encouragement. We are more than willing to answer specific questions about specific passages, even divulging our particular solutions to thorny fingering and bowing problems. However, we feel it is very important, when tackling this work, that you try your own solutions first rather than opt out for copies of our parts. Your efforts, no matter how inadequate or frustrating they may seem to you at first, form the best basis for solving the problems for YOU! The great thing about KentMusic is that we are all in this effort together, learning from one another (and that sometimes means us learning from you as well), and in that situation there is always another idea, another solution, another inspiration from someone. Your ideas are important, too, and you have to develop them yourselves. By so doing, you put yourself in the best position to receive inspiration and use information from others. So, dig in and enjoy the whole fascinating process!
Each June at the end of the session, the MSQ evaluates the work done and the results obtained. Our feeling is often the same: "If we only had one more day ...". The thought occurred to us that maybe we really could use one more day, especially with such a great piece as the Bartok 6th - not that this piece is truly that much more difficult than any other piece, but because the problems sight seem to be greater than those same problems we a face when playing late Beethoven, or Schubert or Mozart of Brahms of Opus 18's or any number of other works. In fact, they are the same problems, basically, only perhaps a little less familiar sounding.
As a solution to this, we are initiating the MSQ Workshop in May in Danbury, CT, 6 weeks before KentMusic, whereby players can spend one very intensive day looking at the Bartok 6th with us. This session is not only for players who are planning to attend Kent Music, but also or anyone who would like to live with this piece for 8 hours studying the technical aspects of it, discussing the problems, offering solutions, and gaining insight be working on the hard stuff together. We feel that the apprehension some of you feel about trying to learn this piece will disappear like the morning mist in the bright May sun once we begin to share this experience.
The emphasis will be on master classes grouped by instrument like at Kent, cleverly arranged so that violinists will benefit from studying both 1st and 2nd parts without having to choose between the tow classes, individual assistance, sessions on fingerings and bowings, possibly a group paythrough of parts of the piece (as yet undecided), an open, actual working rehearsal of the MSQ during which we will demonstrate our solutions to particular quartet passages and quartet problems and discuss them, and a performance of the work at the end by MSQ.
This session will occur on Sunday, May 9th, Mothers' Day, on the campus of Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. You don't have to be a mother to attend, but mothers are especially welcome and each mother will receive a special discount! We must limit participation to the first 32 applicants. Groups are welcome to attend but should understand that this workshop is not so much about coaching as it is working out the technical stuff, and solving individual problems both technical and musical (and psychological and spiritual if necessary!) The cost is $100/person and will include a catered box lunch. You need to talk to your colleagues and let them know about this opportunity, and you need to let us know soon whether you will attend so as to reserve your spot. If you have attended KentMusic in the past, you know that you most likely will be able to attend again this summer providing you apply early enough, so don't let that stand in your way of considering this day of study.
We are pumped up about this new Workshop and look forward to hearing from you! As always, please feel free to call John (or any of the MSQ) at any time of the day or night (insomniacs particularly encouraged to do so) for any reason you deem important. Details are in the accompanying announcement .See you soon!
John Dexter and
The Manhattan Quartet
dexvla@aol.com