The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 036 The Fischoff Experience: The Performers

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

  Experience the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition from the perspective of the musicians participating.  Hear conversations about their experience at Fischoff, their preparation process, and the dedication and many sacrifices that go along with entering a national chamber music competition.   Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition: https://www.fischoff.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fischoffchambermusic/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFischoff/   Featuring: Dajj String Quartet - Chamber Music Connection , Worthington, OH - https://cmconnection.org/ Anna Linder & Mathias Koo, violin; Julian Tugaoen, viola; Jackson Tomsic, cello Catharsis Winds – Cleveland Institute of Music, OH - https://www.cim.edu/ Jessica Chancey, flute; Isaac Ripple, oboe; Shihao Hugh Zhu, clarinet; Willem Crone, horn; Corbin Krebs, bassoon Chiave Trio – Music Institute of Chicago Academy, IL - https://www.musicinst.org/academy Esme Arias-Kim, Kelly Kim, violin & viola; Yerin Yang, piano Fab Five Brass Quintet – Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra - https://cyso.org/ Nick Szoblik & Louis Vacha, trumpet; Miles Teague, horn; Megan Martin, trombone; Christjovan Massao, tuba Fiero String Quartet – Music Institute of Chicago Academy, IL - https://www.musicinst.org/academy Isabella Brown & Kaylin Liu, violin; Elena Galentas, viola; Alon Hayut, cello Galvin Trio – Northwestern University, Evanston IL - https://www.music.northwestern.edu/ Nanao Yamada, violin; Jasmine Pai, cello; Nansong Huang, piano Lafontaine Quartet – McGill University, Montréal QC - https://www.mcgill.ca/music/ Aaron Chan & Astrid Nakamura, violin; Emily Rekrut-Pressey, viola; Fiona Robson, cello Precipice Saxophone Quartet- Merit School of Music, Chicago IL -  https://meritmusic.org/ Emmett Connolly, Cole Moorhead, Christopher Li, Taki Salameh, saxophone Éclatante String Quartet – Starling Preparatory Project, Cincinatti OH - http://www.starling.org/ Christina Nam & Skye Park, violin; Jennifer Armor, viola; Meagan Hipsky, cello Avanzare String Quartet – Cleveland Institute of Music, OH - https://www.cim.edu/ Rebecca Benjamin & Yu-Ming Ma, violin; Serena Hsu, viola; Wei-An Hung, cello The Bone Rangers – Merit School of Music, Chicago IL - https://meritmusic.org/ Liam Coyne, Jonah Blake, Christopher Tam, Rafael Noriega, trombone Merz Trio, New York NY - https://www.merztrio.com/ Brigid Coleridge, violin; Julia Yang, cello; Eric (Lee) Dionne, piano     If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review on iTunes!  I truly appreciate your support! Visit www.mindoverfinger.com for information about past and future podcasts, and for more resources on mindful practice.   THANK YOU: Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show's musical theme!  Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson. Also a huge thank you to my producer, Bella Kelly!   MIND OVER FINGER: www.mindoverfinger.com https://www.facebook.com/mindoverfinger/ https://www.instagram.com/mindoverfinger/   Join the Mind Over Finger Tribe here!  https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindoverfingertribe/

You're listening to The Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 36, the first of five shows discussing the fish-off experience. 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 fantastic day wherever you are. It was really wonderful for me to be at the 46th Fish Off competition last week on site at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. And I'm bringing you back lots of inspiring stories, some great tips and lots of information.

From the outside, a competition can look like it's all about the performers, and it sort of is, but it really takes an enormous amount of work and dedication from a whole team of people to make it happen, so I thought I would bring you the experience of Fish Off from the different perspectives of the people involved. Today I'm going to start with the stars of the show, the musicians, and we'll get to hear about everything from how they felt to how they prepared and took in the experience then tomorrow you'll hear about the village that supports those performers and that's the coaches the parents and the many organizations involved and of course the fish off team itself in the

third episode of this series you'll hear from four of the judges and they're talking to us about their experience they're going to give us some insight as to what they're looking for in a group when they're judging, and they'll answer the questions that you guys sent me before I left. In the fourth episode, I'm talking with Will Pyle from the grand prize winning group of the competition, the Aruna Saxophone Quartet, and he's telling us all about how they prepared for Fischhoff and what it's been like for them. Then I'll wrap things up with a summary of sort of some takeaways, tips, and advice, and with a conversation with my fellow podcaster friend Nathan Cole on what it was like for us to be there. So I hope you tune in all week and get in touch with me to share

your thoughts about the fish off or about competitions in general. And please share with whomever you think might benefit from or find value in this episode. As always, you can find me at mindoverfinger.com and on both Facebook and Instagram by searching for Mind Over Finger. So let's get started right away with a few words about the fish off competition for those of you who don't know much about it. The competition started 46 years ago and was the dream of chamber music lover Joseph Fischhoff, and you'll hear a bit more about this in my conversation with Tom Rosenberg in tomorrow's episode. This year, the competition hosted musicians from 20 countries, with some being as young as 10 years old and others traveling as far as China. The competition

is for groups that consist of three to six musicians, and there are four categories, a junior category for age 18 and younger, and a senior category for musicians from 18 to 35 years old, and they are divided between winds and brass and strings and piano. To enter the competition, the musicians have to send in a video recording by the end of February, and those go through a screening committee that listens and watches for things such as interpretation, ensemble sound and unity, technical accuracy, and overall performance effect. Once at the competition, the jury determines what they play in the first round, but the groups pick themselves what they play in the subsequent rounds, and you will see in future episodes the kind of reflection that goes into picking that

repertoire. There are three rounds over three days that culminate with the gold medalist concert, where the gold medalist groups from all four categories perform, and where the jury picks the grand prize winner from the senior division in the first round this year there were 24 groups in the junior strings category 14 in the junior wins and 12 groups for both senior categories competing at an event like the fish off competition as a young musician is intense and quite special it requires so much work passion dedication many sacrifices and it's a real financial investment when you add up the costs of many years of lessons, coachings, and travels.

It's an opportunity for tremendous growth. It definitely builds character and it creates lifelong memories and friendships. So those are the things I want to discuss in this episode. And they were the things I was thinking about as I was scoping out my little podcasting area after I arrived on Thursday night, which is the night before the first round.

and I spotted two groups that had come in early to register and I couldn't resist approaching them because I was really eager to hear about how they felt and what they wanted to get out of this experience. The first one was a young string quartet from Worthington, Ohio. Please meet the Dodge Quartet from Chamber Music Connection. Can you tell us the name of your group and what your name and where you guys are from? We are the Daz String Quartet. My name is Matthias Kuh, and we're from Worthington, Ohio. Wonderful. Are you excited about what's happening this weekend? Yes, I'm really excited.

How long have you guys been playing together? The three of them have been together for, this is their fourth year, and this is my first year. So you've been together four years? Yes. Oh, that's amazing. So how does it feel to, is this your first time at Fish Off? No, this is our second time, and this is my senior year. The two violins in our group are freshmen, so they still have a while, but this is kind of my last ride with them.

Very meaningful, right? Yes, very. That's very exciting. And what are you looking forward to the most this weekend? I think, like Jackson was saying, this is his senior year. This is really technically our last competition with him, so we're all just looking forward to performing and just having a good time this weekend. That sounds great. And have a lot of fun, I hope, right?

Yes. Can you tell me all of your names so I have them down? I'm Julian Tagowan. I'm the violist. Anna Linder, first violinist. I'm Jackson Tomsik, the cellist. I'm Matthias Kay, the second violinist. That's right. Thank you so much, guys. Then I spoke with Jessica Chansey, Isaac Ripple, Hugh Zhu,

Willem Krohn, and Corbin Krebs, members of the Catharsis Winds from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Can you start by telling me your name and which group you're from? My name is Will Krohn. I'm the horn player in Catharsis Winds. Where are you guys from? We're from the Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland, Ohio. In which division? We're competing in the Senior Winds Division.

Is this your first time here? Yes. My name is Hugh Shih-Hao-Drew. I'm the clarinetist in Catharsis Winds. And what are you looking forward to for this weekend's activities? The process of music making in this level is going to be amazing, and we'll see lots of colleagues and great musicians, and it's going to be a great experience. That's a great answer.

How about you? Have you participated at Fischhoff before? I have not. This is my first time. And how long have you guys been together as a group? This is our third year. Oh, wow. Okay. And what are you looking forward to the most here? I'm looking forward to hearing some really incredible chamber music. Chamber music is my favorite type of music to play.

I mean, it's why we do what we do. And to be here on the biggest stage with the best up-and-coming young artists and to be able to be included as part of that, it's just a dream come true. Well spoken. Thank you. What's your favorite part of the preparation process and preparing to come here? Or least favorite? my favorite part and least favorite i would say they both go hand in hand how much time i spend with these people ends up being a lot sometimes but at the same time i'm spending it with my

best friends so we just get to make music every single time we have a rehearsal are you guys going to keep playing together next year you think yes we are um yeah we've got at least another year together and what what do you think you guys are going to get out of this competition since you tell me that you're you're gonna keep playing together what are you looking forward to get out of the experience i would say the competition experience um just being able to zone in and focus together as a group um it's it's fun to compete uh and and it's just good for us in general as performers you know it uh helps us practice being cohesive and a unit under intense pressure. And before we knew it, prelim day was there, and I got to catch the executive

director of the competition, Carmen Creel, who described so well how we all felt that morning. Carmen Creel, the craziness is about to begin. How do you feel? What are you thinking? Well, I've had lots of espresso, so that's amping up my excitement times 10,000. I think that what really resonates for me is seeing the faces and hearing the excitement in all of the young musicians. They have worked for so long and have spent so much time and money and effort. And this is really the culmination of all their hard work and for their parents and their teachers and coaches too. Thank you. So on day one, I spent a lot of time at the O'Neill Hall of Music that hosted the Junior Division and listened to several incredible performances.

We are the Chiave Trio. We're from Chicago, Illinois. You guys, I just heard you play so beautifully. And one thing that was really amazing is that you, the violinist and violist, you guys were switching instrument. How does that feel in the middle of a performance? It's a little bit nerve-wracking because the viola is a little bit bigger, so you have to make sure that your fingers are transitioned for each instrument, in my opinion, so it's a little bit scary. And I also think that doing a different instrument is sort of, since we play differently, so we naturally have to sort of blend the same way, so that's always important to keep trying to accomplish that. How do you feel now that the performance is over? A little bit relaxed

now we can like have fun now well we did we did have fun on stage too i'm not saying but um i'm glad that it went well yeah and do you have a special um special ritual that you do before you hop on stage so before we just give each other compliments and tell each other how much we love each other just to pump ourselves up yeah thank you so much thank you then i spoke to the members of the Fab Five Brass Quintet from the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra who speak about adjusting quickly to a new acoustique

and about lessons learned from rehearsing and performing chamber music. Meet Nick Zoblik and Louis Vacha on trumpet, Miles Teague horn, Megan Martin trombone, Chris Jovan Massau on tuba. You just got done playing. How do you feel right now?

I feel pretty great. I thought that we blended really well together as a group, and I thought that we showed them our best stuff. So I feel proud of our group. And how does it feel to walk in the room where you didn't get to rehearse or perform in? And how do you adjust to this acoustic so quickly? I think we've got to play in a lot of different styles of rooms.

So it's been really nice. We've played together long enough that we kind of know how to adjust to each other and be able to do that so it's kind of it was fun that's wonderful yeah what's one of your favorite thing about rehearsing with a group like a brass quintet oh because there's a lot less of us we're all able to get really close to each other and really like get to know each other sound each other as people and i think that's just like a really special bond that like stuff like orchestras that you don't get to have with everybody how about some of the challenges some of the challenges

definitely are um like being able to rehearse just because there is one per part so it's kind of difficult to always like to listen to an example but if we can overcome it then we can have good rehearsals and good outcomes of performances and what are you going to take away from this experience of playing that first round oh every time uh i'm grateful for every opportunity we get to perform in front of people because just personally it helps a lot for development just as a player and every time i get to play together with my group uh there's so many things I can take away from that and improve so I'm happy. That's awesome. Thank you guys so much you play beautifully. Another group from the Music Institute of Chicago is the Fiero String Quartet

and not only do they sound great but I had a lot of fun getting to know their parents slash fan club and there's more about that in tomorrow's episode and here they talk to me about choosing a name for their group their rehearsal process and how they work with their coach what playing champion music brings to their solo playing and the ties that they've created with each other. Here are Isabella Brown and Kaylin Liu on violin, Elena Galantis on viola, and Alon Hayut on cello. I'm with a member of the Fiero String Quartet. I hope I said that correctly. and let's start with that what's in the name how did you guys come up with that name oh um well fiero in italian means prideful um actually we were asked this question when we were being

interviewed and we were playing for wfmt but i'll give you the same answer it's it doesn't necessarily mean we're like prideful people or like we're arrogant people we're rather we're like prideful for like having like gotten this opportunity to play and like to showcase all of this wonderful repertoire to the audience that's a wonderful name i love it and talk to us a little bit if you want about your rehearsal process how do you guys approach a work when you're you know you sit down at the beginning of rehearsal talk to us a little bit about that so we have a lot of great help from our coach rodolfo vieira but um i mean we pretty much just we play it through and spots that don't go so well are spots that we like to focus on a lot

especially for competitions and performances and he helps us a lot by giving us strategies like especially visualizing stories that go with the moods of the piece and kind of communicating with each other and it helps even if we have maybe like technical difficulties within the within the repertoire it helps us more when we kind of have a story behind that helps us relate to the piece and it kind of fixes our problems naturally like that awesome and you know through this process i see you have a cello on your back what do you feel like chamber music brings to your cello playing playing the cello as a solo instrument versus playing with uh with a group a quartet is very different because on solo I just focus on my own stuff but when I play with

the quartet I'm kind of like the foundation the the bass line and having that role is very different yes and it's a really great answer and I would say too it probably makes you listen differently to your own solo playing right when you practice yeah definitely I had a chance to talk with your parents earlier and they were talking about the nice camaraderie that they develop with each other how about you guys as a group how does how does it influence how you play the way that you interact with each other as friends um i mean we're all i like to think pretty close um and that definitely helps in chamber music because a lot of it is like communicating with each other visually and like you know in spots that we have together it's important that we have like

a personal connection to like carry that into the music that's awesome thank you guys so much later that evening i caught the performance of the galvin trio that you're about to hear and it features nanao yamada on the violin jasmine pie cello and nansong huang on the piano and they're a group from one of my alma maters northwestern university they were on their way to perform for one of the Fish Off soirees, and those are private or public performances for small community audiences, and they allow the groups to perform their repertoire again before a live audience, and they help increase local awareness of chamber music and support for the Fish Off National Chamber Music Association. The Galvin Trio also told me about how getting more

knowledge about their stage presence was part of the preparation process for Fish Off. this is the galvin trio you guys just played how do you feel we feel very good i think it was a very um hopefully a convincing performance of all three pieces that we were able to play you have to run right now because the fish off is doing several performances in town during the during the competition you're performing at a soiree what are you looking forward in this experience just you know really just sharing great music to music sorry to people particularly sorry i'm still kind of wrapping up my mind but yeah especially since we are playing rather unfamiliar works so it's a nice way to introduce those great works to people wonderful what are

you taking away from the experience of preparing for the competition um it's just really interesting to play for a lot of people in preparation and seeing what we need to work on and how to really make a convincing performance because we focus a lot on how we sound, but we didn't always think about how we looked and we forgot that that was a really important part of a performance. So we really learned how to engage the audience visually as well as just with the sound.

You guys sounded beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much. And the last performance I caught that day was a really thrilling one from the La Fontaine Quartet. And as a French-Canadian, I was so happy to get to hear a group from Montreal. Please meet Aaron Chan and Astrid Nakamura on the violin, Emily Recruit-Pressy, viola,

and Fiona Robson on the cello. And here's what they had to say about their experience on that first day, working on style, developing cohesion as an ensemble, and about rehearsing. So as someone from Quebec, I'm really, really excited to speak with the members of the La Fontaine Quartet. And I just heard their spectacular performance. One thing that struck me from your performance, guys,

is how you were able to really extract the, in my opinion, like the essence of each of the styles. so my first question would be about how so how do you go about developing this style that really goes with each composer as a group i think it's a pretty difficult question to answer no like to be like because we have to like uh evaluate like uh some historical we have to respect some historical like background like we have to do do this kind of like strokes based on that time of period but also we want to live the music by ourselves, so we try to balance it in between. On the one hand, it's the classical side or the classical background of that piece,

and on the other hand, we also want to bring it from our own experience. And for my own, I really love Debussy's Third Movement, and Debussy's music is very colourful, colorful and for me it really portrays an image and uh it's a for me it's like a very peaceful night with a bit cheesy but like there's the moon but uh yeah i mean it's working i could i could see the moon it is really great how long have you guys played together we started playing together at the beginning of the school year so in september only this year and i mean we i just ask about style but how do you go about developing such a great coherent ensemble because you guys were just we practice a lot uh yeah practicing a lot I think our coach uh makes us uh become

coherent I don't know and one thing fascinating about your coach I know him his name is Andre Roy is he has a book out there that's very interesting for all string quartets that takes groups through all of these exercises that is this something that you use as an ensemble? Yes it's something we use a lot as an ensemble we still do and I think for me this is the first time I've been in a string quartet that's worked really this seriously on quartet playing like not just we're going to learn this piece and we're going to learn how to play it well but we really have been focusing on learning how to play as a group how to play quartet what what the how to blend how to play in tune all these things we've been focusing on a lot this year and the Haydn at

least we've been playing that since September so I think that's one of our strongest we feel very cohesive as a group on that piece and on that note so if you work so much on quartet playing what does it bring to your solo playing well it definitely helps with collaborative piano like understanding and considering like the way that each instrument can work with each other it helps me uh listen better especially intonation I think I kind of slacked off on intonation because in solo playing you can sort of get away with it um but in quartet yeah in quartet you absolutely cannot get away with it and so it's definitely helped my um solo playing in that sense and me and Aaron actually played the Mozart Concertante um this year which I think helps with quartet as

well and it went both ways so I learned how to work with violin and like figure out how especially even how people hear different like tonalities because Aaron likes to play really low and I like to play high so it doesn't work but we found a way to make it work and yeah it definitely helps us a little bit. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Day two saw coming the semi-finals and all the excitement and disappointment that comes with making it or not. I spoke with Emmett Connolly, Cole Moorhead, Christopher Lee, and Taiki Salome from the Precipice Saxophone Quartet of the Merritt School of Music. They told me about moving on to the semi-finals and what they like about working together. But first, let's hear a sample of their performance from day one.

I'm with the members of the Precipice Quartet, and you guys just heard that you made it into the semi-final. How does that feel? It feels great because we put a lot of hard work in this year, but if you want to stay focused, just get ready for the next round. That's exciting. And what's been one of your favorite things about working together as a quartet? I mean, obviously we've all had our ups and downs, but overall we've all gotten to know each other as people and musicians. And honestly, these people are some of my closest friends now.

Awesome. Community. Yeah. And what do you feel like playing in this ensemble is bringing to your solo playing? uh well it like just in general it since the music that we picked out is uh really technical and has like a wide variety of different styles it just um yeah just working with these people it really um uh it really opened my mind to like different techniques and stuff i can't wait to hear you guys later today and um can you tell me before we let go do you have a

specific strategy going into the semifinals? I don't think we really have a strategy. We kind of just want to work our best and play and see what happens. It's really just for the fun of it. And we're just going to see what happens. I was also really happy to find out that the first group I spoke with, the Dash Quartet, made it to the semi and I caught them briefly before they headed out to rehearsal so the dashboard I just heard they're going to the semi-final can you tell me how you feel I'm really excited and it's a great opportunity to be do you guys have a strategy for the second round nothing out of the ordinary we're gonna just do our best have fun make the most out of the weekend yeah i think that's the

best strategy have a lot of fun guys catharsis wins also made it and played an extremely beautiful semi-final round and check out what they told me about their incredible dedication to their preparation process you guys just walked off your performance for the semi-finals and I was lucky enough to be in the hall and it was so wonderful I loved how you you were negotiating all of these colors and all of these exchange between all of you guys and the dynamic contrast were just out of this world it was i really really enjoy this performance and first of all i would like to know how you feel coming out of this performance uh we i think we all feel pretty good uh we went out there and did what we wanted to do um play music it was great

for sure it felt like a performance it felt like we were playing for the audience and it was something we were you know in the green room beforehand we're like you know we play our best when we're connecting with the audience and we're not playing a competition we're just performing so let's do that and then we went on stage and that was what happened so from the audience that's what it felt like it felt really fun to watch you guys i felt like you were comfortable which made me feel comfortable and felt like i could just relax and listen to beautiful music it was really wonderful we're glad that it turned out that way because uh you guys were comfortable we're comfortable too like on the stage we're so natural and it was a good feeling to actually make

some music instead of fill up with stress and which is you know not beneficial for making the music so and i want to ask for the people who are listening and don't quite know the kind of sacrifices and hard work and effort that preparing for a competition like this fish off senior division entails can you talk to us a little bit about the rehearsal process how many and and i mean even some logistical details such as how many hours do you practice by yourself how many hours you practice together and coachings and all of that performance opportunities uh yeah so each of us individually are very busy to begin with a lot of us have orchestra every day just regular orchestra um our CIM obligations and classes and personal practice I think it depends on the person

in this group but it could be anywhere from one hour a day to maybe four or five hours a day depending and then this group since we are so busy we end up meeting kind of crazy times of the day sometimes we try to meet every single day for about an hour we try not to do more than an hour because it starts to get like but occasionally we have those rehearsals where we're like you know what we weren't as productive earlier in the week so we're gonna have a start time and no end time we just go until we get everything done that we need to get done right i think my chin just hit the floor right now so i want to repeat that every day every day for how many months um august yeah yep since august that's a lot of dedication right there and how do you approach um how do you

approach the musical content how do you decide on an interpretation for a piece we all have very interesting musical ideas for example when Corbin plays the bassoon out of anyone I could have my eyes closed I know he's playing the bassoon the same goes for Hugh, Will, Jessica hopefully for me as well so I think what what that brings to the table is when we're rehearsing everyone has their ideas and because we spend so much time together we can sort of read each other's minds right like I know what she's going to do before she does it she knows what he's going to do before he does it and these two are always on the same wavelength so I mean it it always works it always works out this is so great I don't want to take any more of your times I'm really grateful we

had this chance to talk from far away at my table I noticed a group that was just exuding fun and joy and I just had to walk over and talk to them and I was so happy to find out that they were from the Starling Preparatory Project in Cincinnati, where Tessa Lark, my guest on episode 23 of the Mind Over Finger podcast, also studied. I think you'll find their enthusiasm contagious. Their name is the Eclatante String Quartet, which means sparkly in French, and I think you'll find that it really comes across when they speak. Their names are Christina Nam and Sky Park, and they play Violin, Jennifer Armour on the viola, and Megan Hipsky on cello. And here's what they shared with me. So my name is Skye Park, and we're from Cincinnati, Ohio in the Starling Project.

And our group is called the Éclatante Quartet. Éclatante. Éclatante. I'm really happy to talk with you because in the past, we've had Tessa Lark on the podcast. And she spoke so highly of this program. So I'm so excited to have a chance to speak with you guys. Can one of you tell us a little bit more about this program before we start talking about you more personally um so basically it's a one day um program full of chamber music theory lessons um regular private lessons chamber music and chamber orchestra and we meet once a week um yeah and it's it's a big big one big family yeah how has the fish off experience been for you so far well it's been really exciting and a big reunion almost to see a lot of our friends from different camps and uh

I've really really enjoyed it actually it's been a lot of fun what's gonna be your biggest takeaway I mean the experience is not over yet you guys just got done playing the semi-final so there's so one more day but so far what do you think your biggest takeaway is going to be gosh um I mean I've just enjoyed all of the music being played I I really just enjoyed the music actually and just I think happiness has been my biggest takeaway just like it's been so good so yeah I wish I could say one more or something else but yeah happiness is the best right and now if i can take you down to earth a little bit can we talk a little bit about your rehearsal process so how so you guys rehearse once a week with the coach um and how what happens when you sit down to

rehearse what are some of your favorite technique or maybe some some that you don't like as much well we rehearse for about an hour every saturday usually more um and we spot check um we practice our parts at home obviously and we come in with um spots to rehearse so we usually touch up the beginning um right um and then um i can't say we have any specific rehearsal strategies that are unique to our quartet yes we always start playing scales um in the key that in the place that piece that we're playing um we do rounds and things like that and then we have a coaching also every saturday also and it's always good to have fun bond with the quartet yes we laugh too much i think that yeah that's very important do you guys do any kind of a rehearsal with a score

um our coach mostly it's mostly our coach i think maybe as a group we could have done more score study but i think we have played with each other enough to know each other's parts we listen to each other a lot which is very important so yes yes what would be a piece of advice that you would give for participants for future years enjoy the music i i think that's i mean i think that's the biggest thing really because like I feel like the biggest thing that's added to this experience is just really enjoying what we're playing and just giving each other's little smiles in the spots that we know that are just so precious to us that it just makes it so special and worthwhile whether we I mean of course whether we win or not um yeah so maybe really the enjoyment of what you're

playing it's great thank you guys so much thank you thank you in my final chat with artists on day two, I caught up with a group from the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Avanzare Quartet with Rebecca Benjamin and Yu Ming Ma on the violin, Serena Su on the viola and Wei-An Hong on cello. It's their second experience here at Fischhoff and they talked to me about what they learned from their first experience here and about their rehearsal process. So I'm with the Quartet Avanzare from the Cleveland Institute of Music and I just heard your performance you guys were terrific um can you talk to us a little bit about the experience of fish off how it's been for you so far it's been a really wonderful experience um a couple

of us have been here before and it's always it's one of those competitions that you just kind of feel right away at home and at ease all of the staff and the the people here make it um not It doesn't seem too stressful. I think that's one of the really great things about Fish Off. We played yesterday, the quarterfinal round, and found out last night that we advanced to the semis and just performed those. So we're excited, and we've had a really great time so far. You just said that you've been here before.

What are some of the things that you learned from a previous experience that you bring with you to a second experience? sure i think um just the sense of engagement together on the stage um is really important once you get out there it's you know we've done all of the work that we can and um it just like having fun on the stage really communicating that to the audience because even when you you watch different groups and stuff i was here as a junior competitor a couple years ago and seeing some of the senior groups I always looked up to them so much and how they were so professional and so incredibly together and the cohesion between the groups and I think that's something that

I've strived for since then and learned a lot from them and their performances so it's amazing to be back here as a senior group and be one of those people and if that's okay would you allow me to maybe lift the curtain a little bit on your rehearsal process for the listeners who are curious about what it takes to be here at fish off in the semifinals well over the past couple weeks we've been rehearsing quite a lot leading up to the competition probably like um at least like two hours a day but sometimes four or more um and and then we actually have we're all doing auditions for different conservatories um and colleges so we we actually didn't get to rehearse as much as we wanted earlier in the semester so we kind of just uh

made it up in the end and uh and it's um kind of a final push to the end so we typically rehearse for like two hours at a time at the most because we feel after that kind of um need a mental break and and need to kind of regather our thoughts and um whether that's multiple times to get it or not and then we try to plan out our rehearsals as far as knowing what we want to achieve at the start of the rehearsal and then really going for that during our process you're just talking about having a clear plan and for the people who listen to the podcast they know that i really like that is there any other favorite rehearsal techniques that you guys utilize So our previous coach from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Peter Sala, who I had as a coach, too, when I was doing it.

So he always had us kind of, like, play to the center and, like, imagine a ball of sound in the center. I'm sure you remember that, too. And also just turning away from each other, like, backs against each other to really enforce, like, listening and, like, not relying on the eyes as much. and more so on the sound and how we feel, like our breaths unified together, which is really cool, I thought. And if I can throw in one of my story with him, at the time I was at Music Academy of the West

working on Bartok 3rd Quartet, and he had us do the counting technique that he likes to teach. And this was quite difficult for a French-Canadian who didn't speak much English at the time, so it was a big adjustment for me to count in English. It didn't quite work, so I had to count in French. So it was kind of a mixed-language counting technique.

It was great. And what are you looking forward to get out of this experience of fish? When you drive home at the end of this weekend, what are you going to take away with you? I haven't heard from you yet. Oh, our first experience here was an outreach from a high school, and that was a very unique experience for us. um so the setting is quite different we are all facing each other and we're forming a little

circle in the center and the audience are surrounding us so it is very special and we can all see each other and that's very unique yeah about the human connection yeah is there something you would like to say any additional comment what would be your favorite memory from fish off oh i guess it's like sitting in the car with them and just like talking chatting you know having road trip together so that's really fun like beside playing music making music but fun just to hang out together in our last um time in the school before we all graduated yeah very special experience thank you guys so much thank you by the morning of day three we knew the three groups in each division that advanced to the finals and I had to talk one more time with the

La Fontaine Quartet because I'm such a big fan and they shared their takeaways with me but before here is a taste of their beautiful playing they didn't advance to the finals because such is the nature of a competition but i'm sure you'll agree with me that this is not the last time we hear about them i'm with my fellow canadian friends here at the la fontaine quartet and i would i saw you in the hall taking in some performances this morning in the final round and i would like to know how um how you feel this morning and what you're taking away from this experience here at fish off um i was really excited to hear uh the finalists play um it's really interesting and i liked hearing all the different renditions on mendelssohn and bartok um yeah and i think it

was super super important to listen to the other quartets and hear them play and support them because I mean we're all here to play music at the end of the day and I mean we're out of the competition we can just support them so it's a good feeling. What else are you taking away from this experience? I think it was just really fun being in South Bend and being around all these people and especially now that it's kind of over like we can talk to more people and like really let it sink in I found it it was really fun to watch the groups and like see how hard everyone's worked and like Astrid said like the different interpretations and like the way different violinists and violists and cellists play the same stuff it was really cool and original

despite it I don't know there isn't like a clear-cut way to do anything and that's pretty cool yeah so true do you have any tips for future participants of the competition um rehearse hard yeah i mean yeah like what i've learned most is like in the chamber experience like this is like my most serious chamber experience and we put like i realized like how much effort you really have to put like yourself and with the group and like listening in the finals like really made me respect much more on like how much effort everyone has to put and like how amazing like everyone sounded and just i think at the end everyone just had to play your heart out and like do your best yeah what's your favorite memory of this whole experience

oh i don't know that's hard i'm gonna think about it like the first day when we played yeah museum oh that was fun um I definitely I had a lot of fun in the first round um just playing in the in the hall for the first time um and I think we were all really pumped and excited to be there we the first round felt our our energy was was really good and positive I think um and it's also been fun being at at this this vibe of this competition has been very friendly and supportive and the first day that we arrived after traveling for 12 hours waking up at 5 a.m we got here and then we went we got a a ride with a fisher volunteer to do-wo-jack do-wa-jack do-wa-jack michigan and we played a little concert at this tiny museum and the audience was so nice and supportive and

excited to hear us and excited that we were there and it was a really nice introduction to fish off and I think the spirit of this competition is has been a lot like that also the ice cream social was great well you guys were wonderful thank you so much for letting me harass you through this competition then I spoke with Liam Coyne, Jonah Blake, Christopher Tam and Rafael Noriega members of the Bone Rangers from the Merritt School of Music in Chicago as they were stepping off the stage from their final round. They talked to me about their experience working together and preparing for Fischhoff. I'm with the Bone Rangers right after their performance for the final round here

at Fischhoff. How do you feel? I feel that we played the best that we could, you know, for what it is. I'm really happy with how we sounded. Sounds great. And it's a very exciting moment because we're going to get the results very soon. Can you talk to us a little bit about what you're taking away from this experience here at Fischhoff once you go home? I think the best part is that you basically just have to go for it no matter what happens on stage. As long as you try as hard as you can and just take risks,

then it pays off. That sounds great. How long have you guys been working together? So we've been working together as a group for a little less than a year, actually. um and on two of the pieces we played today we've we've been working on these for um let's see about three four months and the other two we've been working on for maybe six to eight weeks i'd say um so that's about it and what's your favorite thing about this process of preparing for the

competition um my favorite thing about preparing for this process is that um is that i'm preparing Playing for it motivates you to become a better chamber group, and as an ensemble, you get to figure out more on how the music goes, as well as the character of each member in the group. You get to realize how important it is to be together and to work together, because you can't do anything by yourself, you have to work as a team in order to be strong. And do you feel like it's brought something to your solo playing as well? I mean, just really going for it, going after whatever happens.

Just know that it's in the past. Just keep going for it. Just work hard, work harder, keep working. Thank you guys so much, and good luck. The last group I heard and spoke to was the Merz Trio from New York City, formed by Bridget Coleridge on the violin, Julia Yang on cello, and Eric Lee Dion on the piano. They ended up winning the gold medal in the strings piano category, But at the time we spoke, none of us knew that.

They talk about their experience with Fischhoff and competitions in general. And as you'll see, they're already really busy as an ensemble and ready to take on the national and international stage as winners of the Fischhoff competition. hi this is Lee Dion I'm the pianist of the Mertz Trio and this is Bridget Coleridge and I'm the violinist of the Mertz Trio you guys just finished perform a beautiful final round here at Fischhoff how does how does it feel how do you guys feel after you know finishing this performance I think it just feels great to be here after three days and to have kind of another chance to play the pieces that we brought,

that we're so proud of, that we love to play, and then to have this opportunity to do it in a little bit more of a celebratory way and really just be ourselves on stage. Yeah, it was nice to have many opportunities to play in the hall, and so by this last round it felt like we knew the space a little better than when we began the whole competition, and so we could really enjoy ourselves and enjoy playing with one another. And at this time, we don't know any of the results

because this is before the announcement. But I would like to know, regardless of what happens, what do you take away from this experience? I think it's been a huge growth experience. We've done a lot of competitions in the past, but actually, it's kind of funny. We were talking about this. We've won a competition outright in the past.

gold medal audience award and we've also never passed through a competition because that was a kind of competition where everybody just kind of gets invited to the finals and so coming here and this is our second time here and you know the first time we also didn't pass through so like coming here and then having to go through all the rounds I think it really taught us to trust ourselves and you know we know how we perform under pressure we know what it's like to play a concert but um to have these different rounds where we're just kind of doing the same program and learning from each round and and getting a little bit more comfortable each time it's been really great to do that and so you're here at a competition but i was overhearing a conversation

earlier where you already perform a lot and seems like you have a lot of really fun projects coming up can you talk to us a little bit about that sure um so we're based in new york city at the moment uh and we do a lot of recitals and in a traditional sense of the recital but we're also really interested in um in collaborating and thinking outside the box in terms of what's possible for for a classical piano trio and so recently um we've done projects that involve dancers um chefs um that involve um really bringing together some of our interests because we think it's important, you know, yes, we're instrumentalists and we're musicians, and that's a large part of what we do,

but we also have various interests. So we've done different degrees, say, in literature or other artistic areas, and we're really keen to bring some of those influences into our programming. So we've done stuff that combines text and music and lighting and theatre and all sorts of things. So we're hoping that we can continue to grow in those areas

and really develop that alongside the recitals. Well, I wish you the best of luck, and it was such a pleasure to get to hear you earlier today. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much. Nice to meet you. Well, there you have it. As you see, it's a weekend full of emotions, and it's preceded by months and years of hard work and dedication.

these musicians are supported by an army of teachers coaches parents and by organizations that provide them with the infrastructure needed to prepare for such an event and you'll get to hear from those people in the next episode. A bientot!