The Enesco String Quartet: Taking It On the Road for Winter Term Story by Claire Chase Photos by John Seyfried
	RELATED Winter Term Itinerary for the Enesco String Quartet Enesco String Quartet Returns From Winter Term in the Far North		The Enesco String Quartet: Violinist Beth Weisser ('03), violinist Emily Fowler ('01), cellist Chris Gross ('04), and violinist Adam Meyer ('02) For many Conservatory students, Winter Term serves as a respite from the hustle of fall and spring semesters. For others, this month-long session allows for intensive practice, language study, travel, or the pursuit of extra-curricular projects. For a few others, Winter Term is seized as an opportunity to create involved and ambitious career-directed projects, such as the outreach undertaking of the Enesco Quartet. The Enesco String Quartet--composed of violinist Emily Fowler ('01, Calgary, Alberta, Canada), violinist Beth Weisser ('03, Fargo, North Dakota), violist Adam Meyer, ('02, West Des Moines, Iowa) and cellist Chris Gross ('04, Clive, Iowa)--has embarked on an extensive outreach project in the communities of Fargo, North Dakota, Des Moines, Iowa, and St. Paul, Minnesota. Dedicated to the promotion, performance and expansion of classical music in these communities, the ensemble will offer traditional recitals, interactive performances, lecture-demonstrations, discussions, master classes and question/answer sessions in local schools and community venues. "The two main components of the project are outreach and performance," explains cellist Chris Gross. "The outreach activities--such as playing in schools, nursing homes and art centers--will take place primarily during the day." The quartet will visit grade schools in Fargo, Moorhead and Des Moines, offer noon-hour bag lunch recitals at the Fargo Art Museum, and present performance-lectures at local nursing homes and community centers. "We're planning on working in the schools and communities from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily. Then we'll have time for a few hours of rehearsal each day. The schedule will be rigorous, but very gratifying," predicts violinist Beth Weisser. Evenings will be devoted to concerts in various locales, from churches to school auditoriums. Three formal recitals in Fargo, the Twin Cities and Des Moines are slated for January 21, 22 and 31, respectively. "We've chosen our repertoire--Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8; Smetana, Quartet "From My Life;" Mozart, Quartet K. 465 "Dissonance," and shorter programmatic works by Gershwin and the Turtle Island String Quartet--in order to present works with extra-musical content. We think that the programmatic nature of our repertoire will make our program more accessible to a wider audience," explains violinist Emily Fowler. "Our goal for this project is to spread the message of classical music, and specifically chamber music, to people who don't normally have the benefits of exposure to such music on a conservatory level. We chose programmatic music so we'll be able to show that music is much more than notes on a page, or sound coming from a CD. We want to show that what we do can be understood much more easily if you can explain the meaning behind the music," adds violist Adam Meyer. "There are several common stereotypes surrounding classical music," continues Weisser, "and our hope is that the people who hold these beliefs will perhaps change their minds, or at least reconsider the myths that classical music is 'boring' or that is it for a higher echelon of society, or that classical musicians are "stuffy." The point we are trying to make is that classical music is for everybody, and can be enjoyed by everybody." Gross concludes, "We're looking to create a new audience that perhaps hasn't heard a string quartet before. Many people who have a disgust for classical music perceive it as something only for the intellectual elite. And I think that a primary reason for this is that most people are not exposed at a young age to this truly beautiful, universal art form." About the Enesco String Quartet The Enesco Quartet came together last October when associate dean Laura Kuennen-Poper suggested to Beth Weisser that she organize a brief outreach-based string quartet residency in Fargo, North Dakota, where Weisser grew up. "I wasn't terribly excited by the idea at first, as I considered the possibility of convincing three other people to come to North Dakota to be nearly impossible. Nonetheless, I mentioned to Adam the idea of the residency, as sort of a joke. He became more and more interested as we began to think of various possibilities for the project such as repertoire, connections, and perhaps doing a similar thing in Des Moines, where he's from." "When Adam heard about the project," says Gross, "he was really excited and the project suddenly mushroomed into outreach in Fargo and Des Moines, as well as performances in Fargo, Des Moines and Minneapolis. Emily and I joined and the project really took off." The members began building contacts with the aid of their various hometown connections, and devised a rough sketch of an itinerary. Soon, "a tour schedule came together, and luckily, we were able to fit everything in. The quartet just sort of fell together in about the space of a week," says Gross. "We started rehearsing every day, and received coachings from Gregory Fulkerson, professor of violin, and Alla Aranovskaya, violinist with the St. Petersburg Quartet." The quartet also received intensive coachings during the first week of January from Peter Howard, principal cellist of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Weisser says, "Our personal musical goal is to do a project that will help us grow as a quartet, learn some good rep, and learn how to play well as a group. We all want to play to the best of our abilities, and we all want to see this quartet continue with even more ambitious projects and performances."
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