St. Petersburg Quartet Farewell Concert

Success to you, and happiness!

After five years in residence at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the St. Petersburg String Quartet is about to embark on a series of new adventures in good music.

To send the ensemble off properly-and to give local audiences another extraordinary listening experience-the Conservatory is presenting a Farewell Concert featuring the quartet Friday, May 9, at 8 p.m. in Finney Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

Professor of Pianoforte Monique Duphil will join the ensemble in performances of Tchaikovsky's Trio in A minor for piano, violin, and cello, op. 50, and Dvorak's Piano Quintet in A major.

"We celebrate the musical excellence in teaching and performance that the members of the St. Petersburg Quartet have brought to the Conservatory," says Dean of the Conservatory Robert K. Dodson. "They are exemplary chamber musicians and wonderful friends of Oberlin. We wish them the very best."

Current members of the Grammy-nominated St. Petersburg String Quartet, which arrived in Oberlin in 1997, are first violinist Alla Aranovskaya, second violinist David Chernyavsky, violist Aleksey Koptev, and cellist Leonid Shukayev. The ensemble's year-long residency was funded with the support of a grant from the Reinberger Foundation. During that first year, the quartet presented more than 70 concerts in the United States and abroad.

In 1998-99 the quartet was based in Russia but made debuts in London's Wigmore Hall and Canada. The group also performed in several British festivals and continued to perform in the United States. That year's appearances also included concerts in Lincoln Center's Great Performances series and at the 92nd Street Y in New York. The quartet returned to Oberlin in 1999 and has been here ever since.

"We will always remember how the audiences and the people in the community just loved us and always came to our concerts," says Aranovskaya, spokesperson for the ensemble.

For Aranovskaya, the quartet's most inspiring performing experience was in Finney Chapel for Franz Schubert's Octet in F major for Winds and Strings, op. 166, D. 803, the first time the quartet had ever played the piece. Guest soloists Peter Dominguez (double bass), Daniel Gilbert (clarinet), George Sakakeeny (bassoon), and Michael Mayhew (horn) joined the quartet for that performance.

"It felt as if we were living together in the music," says Aranovskaya. "The contact between all of us during rehearsal and on stage was just great. On stage, I felt as if the music were being born right then-as if it had never been played before, as if we were debuting it for Schubert. I felt a real sense of creation."

Another endeavor in which Aranovskaya can take pride is the teaching she and her colleagues did in Oberlin.

"It was a great pleasure to work with our Oberlin students," she says. "Many of them have won prizes."

"We are really grateful to everybody who made our residency such a pleasure," she continued. "We really will miss this place."