The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 034 The Fischoff Effect: Christopher Whitley – Thalea String Quartet

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 34, the fourth of this series of five conversations discussing the fish-off effect. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now, your host, Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. Hi, everyone. I hope you're having a splendid day so far. If you've heard the last few conversations, you know by now that I will be on site at University of Notre Dame as one of the official podcasters covering the 46th annual Fish Off competition from May 10 to 12. And this

Starting point is 00:00:54 week, I'm bringing you five former winners of the competition to talk about their experience preparing for the performances and competing at Fischhoff and about the wonderful adventures and opportunities that have followed their win. In this series, you will hear about the Fischhoff effect with my guests Blaise Magniere from the Avalon String Quartet, Dorival Puccini from the Axiom Brass, Matt Landry from the Acropolis Reed Quintet, Christopher Whitley from the Talia String Quartet,

Starting point is 00:01:24 and Lydia Ray, cellist from the former Cairo String Quartet. Whether you're a musician about to compete at the competition or a music lover looking for a fresh approach to practicing and preparing for a concert, make sure to subscribe and tune in every day because those conversations are bursting with inspiration and extremely useful information. Each group has a unique and motivating story, and my guests are so generous with their insightful tips and advice. And now, I present you Christopher Whitley from the Talia String Quartet.

Starting point is 00:01:57 Let's go to the show. Christopher Whitley, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Christopher, can you please tell us a little bit about you, about your group, how you guys met, and which prize did you win at Fischhoff? Sure. So my quartet is called the Talia String Quartet. We formed just about five years ago in Cormier, Italy, at the Zephyr International Chamber Music Festival. It was a festival run by faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where we were based up until August of last year. And we are now based in Austin, Texas, at the University of Texas.

Starting point is 00:02:46 We are the Young Professional String Quartet there, studying with the Miro Quartet. and last May, just under a year ago, we won the bronze medal at the Fischhoff International Competition or National Competition. I didn't know you guys met in Italy. How does that come to existence that you meet in the summer festival and then are able to continue activities as a group full time? That's a very good question. So Kumiko and I, Kumiko Sakamoto is the other violinist in the quartet we had wanted to go to italy for the summer and she had gone to the zephyr festival a couple of times before and we thought it would be fun to spend a few weeks in the alps playing string quartets and we just so happened to have our founding cellist

Starting point is 00:03:32 she was on her way to san francisco kumiko and i were already studying at the conservatory at the time. And one of our teachers found Luis, our violist, who was coming in to begin his master's at the conservatory that fall. So we met in the summer, but all ended up back in San Francisco in September. So then we were able to continue working with our quartet. And that year, the San Francisco Conservatory started a string quartet graduate program, and we auditioned for that and we're very lucky to be accepted as the graduate fellowship string quartet at the san francisco conservatory for two years and the rest is history yes match made in heaven and meant to be right absolutely this is great and i had a chance to watch a few videos of your performances

Starting point is 00:04:24 at fish off and you guys are such an engaging group it's just so thrilling to watch you play and, you know, watch you interact. And of course, you sound beautiful. Can you talk to us a little bit about your preparation for the competition? So how does that work? Sure. Well, you know, aside from getting to know that music

Starting point is 00:04:49 as well as we possibly could, I mean, we lived with that music for quite a while. One of the things that I think was really interesting about our preparation for Fish Off was we went in thinking a lot about our presentation trying to treat it as much as like a concert as possible and that and that can be really challenging in a competition setting especially one like fish off where you're not playing a full performance the panel selects certain fragments of music that you play you have

Starting point is 00:05:17 very little choice especially over that first round so our mentality was to you know go out there just give everything we possibly had and and see what stuck and it was actually it ended up being really fun and really exciting. And it's a lot more enjoyable when you treat these things like performances. We had just recently showcased at the Chamber Music America conference, which happens every year in New York. And for that showcase, you have about 15 minutes to kind of sell your group, as it were, to presenters and managers and people in the music community in North America. So we had been thinking a lot about how we presented ourselves as a group. We spent a few hours with David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet, literally

Starting point is 00:06:03 working on our bows, how we walked out on stage together, how we kind of collected the energy of the room before we started. And so that was something we really focused on going into Fish Off. And not only, I think, did it help us feel more connected with each other and more confident and are playing. But I think the audience really felt that sense of group dynamic and connection between the members of the group. I think so. And can you talk to us a little bit about your rehearsal process? Sure, sure. So what was interesting about that particular rep is we had been working on it for quite a while because we had just uh in october 2017 um solidified our our lineup for the quartet so our founding cellist left in i'd say november 2016 and so we were on a

Starting point is 00:07:01 cello search for about eight months and through that search through the audition process we were using a lot of the same repertoire that we used for fish off so not only were we rehearsing that music but we were playing it with different people all the time getting a lot of different input from different cellists so i think that gave us a really kind of wide-ranging perspective on the repertoire um and then once once tt joined the group fully we had already learned the music together and then it was just a question of of trying to get as many perspectives as possible So we played for as many people as we could. We also participated in the Chamber Music Yellow Springs competition, which was in itself

Starting point is 00:07:44 a really great learning tool for Fischhoff. You know, living in San Francisco, we were all living in kind of small places, rehearsing in small rooms. And so getting out into those larger spaces was really, really important. As I said, we worked a lot on communication between the different members of the group. And I think for Mendelssohn, for example, I mean, we'd been living with that piece for many years. That was a piece the quartet basically started with.

Starting point is 00:08:12 So playing a piece for that long presents kind of unique challenges because you think you know it and then you get a different perspective or you discover new things. And it's always kind of this searching through the music for new meaning. A piece like the Garth Knox that we played, the rehearsal strategy for that was basically go home figure out how to whip your bow around in the air and then and then come in and put it together that had unique challenges if you know if i'm whipping my boat this way where's someone going to whip their bow so we don't have like a collision midair the the hide in you know again i i think especially for fish off it was just getting a lot of outside perspective and

Starting point is 00:08:57 And, you know, then crafting our most personal version of the music. It's hard, and I think I was reading about what you do, and I think it is really hard getting into that mental space to really perform at your highest ability, especially when you're trying to convey really strong emotions to the audience. so i think additionally it was really important for us to try to get out there and play the music as much as we could because recreating a performance experience and especially recreating a competition experience in the practice room or the rehearsal room is is really challenging so you know those coaching situations or the performance situations were where we really learned you know what we needed for for each piece in particular and especially when you've got such a wide range of repertoire each piece really needs its own special attention you know i really love

Starting point is 00:09:56 that perspective of rehearsing and having the performance in mind and not just any performance or a vague performance but having a very specific idea that okay we're performing here for a competition and how that's different sometimes than just regular concert i think that makes a big difference. Absolutely. And I think it was where we really learned the importance of having an intention for a performance. Because especially in a competition, you need a little bit of that mental backup, that psychological support for yourself and for the group. So we really decided that, you know, we were going to perform for the panel. We weren't going to worry about what the panel was thinking. And what's great about Fischhoff is it gets easier to do that because

Starting point is 00:10:43 as you get through, as you advance through the rounds, there's more of an audience. So the moment there's an audience, you can connect with the, with the audience. You can, you can communicate with the audience and it becomes less of a, of a trial by fire, you know? And, and, and I think for Fischhoff was, what was really great about that experience for us is I think we all had a really clear intention of what we wanted to do when we were there. and I would I'd have to say it it paid off so it was a it was great to see that really work because we talk about this stuff all the time we talk about how to be psychologically prepared we talk about how to set intentions but I at least for me and until you can really see the benefit it's

Starting point is 00:11:25 hard to really believe that psychological stuff is going to work because all I want to do is practice my notes and make sure I don't play out of tune you know blah blah blah what all my teachers told me back when I was younger. And how about the experience once you're on site? How was that for you guys? Well, I think that was another thing that we really intentionally thought about because competitions, I don't know if it's intentional, but often it's not set up to feel like a comfortable concert situation. So we knew it was going to be stressful. We knew everyone around us was going to be very stressed out so again it was you know we're going to go in we're going to smile we're going to be friendly to everybody we're going to say hello we're going

Starting point is 00:12:10 to create an environment where we feel comfortable and and i think that kind of that helps make other people feel comfortable too and we knew quite a few of the groups going into it and and there is this sense, which I think is completely fabricated that, that all these quartets are in competition with each other. There are too many quartets in the world. There are not enough jobs, not enough concerts. And that's, I mean, it's, it's nonsense really. And these competition settings, you know, you could look at it one way as, you know, we're going to see who's the best, or it's getting to say hi to your friends and seeing people you haven't seen for a long time. So when we we tried to create a setting for ourselves that was going to feel comfortable

Starting point is 00:12:53 and that's not to say that the fish off staff aren't some of the most warm and wonderful people you will ever meet i mean we've the moment we got to the registration table everyone was super friendly everyone was really really helpful the competition is run very efficiently very smoothly so we had a we had a really great time but i think no matter how well these competitions are run there's always going to be that lingering feeling of, you know, competition or, or intensity. And, and I think it's up to, it's up to the participants and the groups to really create the, the culture around the competition. And, and yeah, so I, I would say once we were on site, everything ran, ran really smoothly. There are certain elements that are kind of

Starting point is 00:13:41 exciting like you get you know your half hour of warm-up right before but you don't get to go into the hall until you play your first round which is like the craziest thing but you you kind of walk in and the hall is really big for the for the regular competition it's a different hall for the for the junior division i should say for the senior and junior division they're different halls but you know that you walk in and you're suddenly in this huge hall and you have to adapt like almost immediately yeah i was thinking about walking into the room and you know i i can't remember if we ever actually had time in there but but i i don't think we did so in the the first the exciting thing about that first round at fish off is that your the panel chooses what

Starting point is 00:14:29 they want to hear from you so they pick from your selection of music and then you have to walk in and play and so that that first round is is pretty pretty high stress as it is and then you're also walking into that room for the first time and it is a big hall it's a beautiful hall but it is a very big space and so that's one of those things where you just have to be adaptable right away and i think for this we're talking about the setting and the location of being on site and i think it's just that adaptability being being ready to be flexible expecting that things are going to be a bit crazy i mean i remember our warm-up room was on the complete other side of the whole performing arts center so you go you warm up for 15 minutes and then you walk for three

Starting point is 00:15:16 minutes across the other side of the building and the air conditioning is on so you're all warmed up and then your hands get freezing between the warm-up room and the and the hall and it's just you just kind of have to laugh and they hold you behind this curtain and it's this whole this whole thing which which in one way could be really really stressful but you just you know try to try to have fun it's a trade adversity training and instant adjusting exactly and and i mean i'm sure it's just the most efficient way to run run the competition but when you're in the middle of it it's like you're it it's very easy to to fall into that that panic mode unless you have that kind of mental prep beforehand. I love how mindful you guys were about preparing, not only for the

Starting point is 00:16:05 playing part of it and the excellence and performing, but also ready for the experience itself. It's very inspiring. And I think that's an aspect that groups don't always spend a lot of time thinking about. So I'm so happy that you're bringing it up and talking about it. do you guys have a favorite memory of the experience at fish off well if i can go back to that that first round and and just how funny these things can be um so in the first round the the panel chooses from your repertoire and i'm not gonna name any names because we're not actually sure how this how this happened and and we laugh about it now but we got our sheet of paper with the requested repertoire and and most of it was you know pretty normal we had some of

Starting point is 00:16:52 the Mendelssohn. We had a little bit of the first movement of the Haydn. And then the panel had requested the slow movement of our Haydn quartet up to measure four. So on the piece of paper, it said Haydn to measure four. Now, the slow movement of Haydn's opus 76 number five is an F sharp major which is a very tricky key in any context but we saw that and thought this panel just wants to see if we can play in tune for four measures they're going to check that spot and that's going to be it and our initial reaction was like this is totally crazy like this is so not like a performance how does anyone expect us to go out and play this but then again we had this intention for the competition so we were as we were walking out

Starting point is 00:17:45 we said no you know what we are going to play those four measures the best we possibly can and we're just going to show that panel that we can do it and so we walked out and and we played our first couple pieces and we got to the slow moon of the hide-in and we looked at each other and we played the heck out of those four measures and we did this beautiful flourish at the end it was half a phrase like it wasn't even a full phrase and so we ended and we just stayed in this position and then we were getting ready to turn our page and someone says on the panel is like uh excuse me i i think there's been a mistake and we all just laughed and we said yeah we thought that was a little bit funny and the panel was like frantically looking at their music and trying to

Starting point is 00:18:32 figure out what was going on. And I guess they had wanted us to go to a rehearsal number, which was in a different score. It all made sense at the end of the day. And we got to play our opening again. But I think we look at that as another, I mean, another example of if we hadn't gone in with that attitude, it could have been really awkward. It could have been, you know, but the fact that we were able to manage it in a way that felt kind of light and fun I mean who knows how these things influence how panels think but there were a lot of ways that that situation could have gone a lot worse and for me it just shows you know how strange competitions are I mean there's such a strange part of what we do and in some ways they're so removed from the real life of the

Starting point is 00:19:25 performer and the musician, but the closer we can make them, we, you know, the closer we can make a competition to a performance, the more we can make those the same thing. I think the more beneficial they are for, for everybody. So I think that's, that's the thing that we, we laugh about the most thinking about fish off. And, you know, the very, very important lesson to be learned from what you just said is that really our attitude and our perspective dictates everything. Absolutely. One of our teachers at the University of Texas, Will Feigenheuer, says you can change the world in an instant. So you can change that situation from being incredibly uncomfortable or strange or just downright negative to something that

Starting point is 00:20:13 is beautiful or fun or kind of exciting or interesting. And I think, yeah, the competition setting is like the perfect place for those kinds of experiments. Wow. You can change the world in an instant. I think that's going to be my new motto. I love that. Well, I want to make sure it's credited. I definitely didn't come up with that one, but it's a good one. Christopher, can you tell us a little bit about the aftermath? What Fischhoff brought to you guys and how did it change your life? That's a great question. I think the first thing I can say is we really quickly developed a really wonderful relationship with Fischhoff itself.

Starting point is 00:20:59 We met the new executive director, Carmen Creel, at the competition. And she was just somebody that we immediately connected to. And we could tell that her energy really aligned with what we were looking for in the music world. And we just saw her and met her and said, we got to take her out for coffee. So the morning we left, we took her out for coffee. We had a great conversation about where the competition is going and how she sees the future of that kind of part of our industry. And from that, we've been in touch ever since. We were just out in Goshen in South Bend in January doing an educational residency through El Sistema, and we played at the annual Fischhoff Gala. So that was really wonderful to get to go connect with all of the people who make Fischhoff happen and reconnect to the South Bend community. But that was just one side of what happened after Fischhoff. I think it was amazing for us to have success at Fischhoff, considering where we had been as a quartet less than a year prior to the competition. I mean, in May 2017, we weren't really sure we would have a quartet anymore. I mean, the personnel changes are really difficult. They're really challenging.

Starting point is 00:22:16 And so to come out of that in October of 2018 and become medalist at Fischhoff in May was really reaffirming to what we were doing. It really strengthened our belief in what we were trying to bring to the music world. And then there was, you know, there was the exposure. There's, you know, it's always nice having that in the bio and that brings, I don't want to use the word legitimacy, but there is a certain element of the chamber music community about the string quartet world where competitions are really important. So to have that, that was just a really great way to kind of reintroduce our quartet into the world because we had been in this internal search for so long. The other thing was we connected with a lot of wonderful ensembles there, people that we still see at festivals and other competitions, and connected with some of the jury, some musicians who we had never met but really admired or musicians that we had worked with previously, and it was just great to reconnect. The wonderful thing about these competitions is you can only see so much of the impact yourself. Great point. So there's, you know, we see certain things that are tangible that we could connect with what happened at Fish Off, but you really never know.

Starting point is 00:23:40 So for us, in addition to all I've already said, I think it just continued to expand our community. And in the music world, you know, connections, community, those things are so, so important. And what's wonderful about that is that, you know, we met somebody last May and we may not see them again for five years, but, you know, we sent them a thank you card. So they'll remember us and they'll think of us in this situation. I mean, yeah, it's like everything is working kind of behind the scenes without us even knowing. So I think we'll still be seeing the impact of Fish Off for many years to come. Krista, for this, this is all really great insight. do you have any advice for the young musicians who are about to enter the competition you know

Starting point is 00:24:31 what i was what i was saying about an intention and and what you kind of mentioned about adversity training i think competitions i mean any performance any experience like this is what you make of it and competitions especially it does take some mental preparation and you know the competition thing, it's a, it's a reality of, of our industry. It's not my favorite thing. If I'm being totally honest, I have a kind of conflicted opinion about competitions, but I could also see how competitions could become really wonderful experiences for everybody, but it's kind of up to us as the, you know, quote unquote competitors to make that environment happen. So, you know, coming at it in a sense of trying to build community, build connections with,

Starting point is 00:25:20 with the other musicians it's i mean networking is maybe a bit of a dirty word but it's it's it's an amazing networking opportunity above all i mean you are meeting people who you will see for the rest of your life you are meeting you know a panel of experts of geniuses in the chamber music field just getting input from those people is incredibly valuable and so coming at it from an from the vantage point of, you know, I'm going to go perform my best. I'm going to give it my all. Whatever the result may be, I'm going to take this as an opportunity to meet people, to meet, you know, potential colleagues, potential mentors, and just play. The community, the music community in South Bend is incredibly warm and welcoming. I would say they

Starting point is 00:26:12 should definitely try to do uh one of the soiree concerts which i i should say was another one of our favorite experiences at fish off we getting to play a house concert for members of the board or supporters of the competition was such an amazing way to start our time in south bend so that's something i would highly recommend um yeah and so just going in playing your best trying to create an environment that's really supportive and also knowing that competitions, no matter how well you play, no matter how great you feel, the result may not be what you want. But that doesn't really mean anything as long as you feel like you got your message across or you fulfilled your intention for the competition. I don't know if that's good

Starting point is 00:27:03 advice no i think it's great really great advice and christopher before i let you go i'd love it if we could touch on the subject that is a little bit more personal for me i believe that right now you have in your possession a beautiful instrument from the musical instrument bank of canada council for the art and the reason why it's personal is because i believe this instrument is the taft Stradivari violin, which is the violin that I had from 2009 to 2012, also as a recipient of this competition of the Musical Instrument Bank. And I know how, for me, this experience, it was so meaningful and emotional and motivating and exhilarating. And just playing this instrument fired my imagination and just allowed me to explore and expand my playing so much. And so

Starting point is 00:27:57 I would love to hear about your experience with this violin. Well, first of all, I was so excited when I discovered that you had been playing on this instrument as well. It's like, gets me all lit up hearing you talk about it. And honestly, what you just said is exactly how I feel about the experience. I mean, I try to, you know, at concerts, the Canada Council likes for us to mention the instrument. And so I'm, whenever I speak about it, I get totally like overwhelmed.

Starting point is 00:28:25 And I've become completely inarticulate, exactly like what's happening right now. So I really appreciate your ability to say all of those things that you did about the instrument. I mean, it's been, I think, totally life-changing. It's changed my playing so much. It's pushed me to explore different colors, different facets of my playing that I would have never had the opportunity to explore if I didn't have this instrument. And it's one of the amazing things is just thinking about this lineage of people who have played on this instrument. So it's so great for me to meet someone else who has played on the instrument. And I feel like we share this thing that we can't even, I can't even put into words.

Starting point is 00:29:08 I know. I remember every morning, you know, you open the case and every morning it's, I'm not sure if it ever faded. I would just take it out and just feel this love looking at it. You can hardly believe it. It's a deep connection that establishes with the instrument. It's hard to explain. Totally. It's pretty magical. And the musical instrument bank program is just one of the most amazing things. I feel so privileged to be a part of that community, not only with the Canada Council and the instrument bank itself, but the other musicians. And again, this lineage of, you know, I see all these people down the line who have been part of this program, and it's so inspiring to see what they've all done. And to count myself among, you know, these incredible young musicians is so humbling. And yeah, it's hard to talk about it without getting really excited. but yeah i hope i'm i hope i'm doing it justice i'm trying to keeping as good care of it as i can so it's right here next to me actually so oh well i i really hope we meet in person at some

Starting point is 00:30:23 time so i can have the opportunity to hold it one more time yeah of course of course i hope so too christopher thank you so much for uh this gift of your time and insight today i really enjoyed speaking with you. Well, thank you so much for having me. It was really fun talking about all this. Thank you guys for listening. I hope this conversation brought you inspiration and great value. As always, you can visit mindoverfinger.com for the show notes, which have more information about the competition and today's guests. I love to hear from you. So take a screenshot of the episode, share on Instagram,

Starting point is 00:31:11 and tag me at MindOverFinger. Tag the Talia String Quartet, that's spelled T-H-A-L-E-A-S-Q, and tag the Fish Off competition at FishOffChamberMusic. Use the hashtag FishOff2019, and this way we can see that you're listening. We can share it on our stories, and we can give you some love. To join in the experience and follow the competition, visit fishoff.org and their Facebook page at facebook.com slash thefishoff to get more info on the live streaming of the performances and the results.

Starting point is 00:31:48 Thank you for tuning in, and I'll be back tomorrow for more Fish Off Insight. Thank you.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 034 The Fischoff Effect: Christopher Whitley – Thalea String Quartet

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