Concord String Quartet

The Concord String Quartet was born in 1971 when its members, agreed over the telephone to try forming an ensemble. They came from four different parts of the country: Mark from Oberlin, Ohio and Seattle, Washington; Andy from Buffalo New York; John from South Bend, Indiana and Norman from Plymouth, Michigan. Each member been playing the quartet repertoire for many years. However, each had studied or played with the Juilliard Quartet's founding violinist Robert Mann, who encouraged their aspirations and recommended them to each other.

They enrolled in a summer program for nascent string quartets at SUNY at Binghamton Young Artists Program which was created by Peter Marsh and the Lenox String Quartet. [2] This is where they met for the first time and began rehearsing with an awkward discord. Apparently, one of them had been practicing the wrong music.

Even as they were selecting the name Concord out of the dictionary (with its resonant associations – Ives' "Concord, Mass." sonata; the opposite of discord), the foursome launched itself into its contemporary repertoire with a vengeance. This was fueled by a commitment to record a three-record VOX BOX of avant-garde American quartets. Their intensive summer in Binghamton was broken only by their introduction to Dartmouth College in August – a two-week rehearsing residency funded by the Friends of Hopkins Center which culminated with an informal "thank you" performance in Rollins Chapel.

The next two years saw the Concord taking part in the Young Artists Program at SUNY at Binghamton and in a touring residency sponsored by the Hudson Valley Philharmonic Society. Throughout that period the quartet consolidated its reputation as champions of contemporary American music, while exploring both the well-trodden paths and the odd byways of the standard quartet repertoire. Their award-winning albums of contemporary quartets established the Concords at the forefront of contemporary quartet performance, and unloosed a steady stream of new quartets by hopeful composers that arrived in their mailbox several times a week for years. For much of that time, their policy was to give every new work at least a quick run-through, and their commitment to new works never lapsed. Numerous quartets have been written for or dedicated to the Concords.

Early on, as winners of the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award in the fall of 1972,[3] they were entitled to commission a new quartet. They chose to approach composer George Rochberg, who produced his String Quartet No. 3. One of the earliest works written in the then revolutionary "collage" technique that has since been dubbed "Neo-Romantic," the String Quartet no.3 (Rochberg) and the Concord's performances and recording of it, landed them smack in the middle of an international musical controversy that continued through their seven year professional association.

In 1974, following several more concerts at Dartmouth, then director of the Hopkins Center Peter Smith asked them to become string quartet-in-residence. [4] The quartet has played over eleven hundred concerts in forty-one states and the District of Columbia, three Canadian provinces, and six other foreign countries.

They celebrated the end of their first three-year residency at Dartmouth College with a performance of the complete Beethoven quartets – considered the pivotal challenge for any string quartet, and later took that cycle around the country, including a Beethoven series in New York's Alice Tully Hall in three successive seasons. They have also performed a complete Bartok cycle, and participated in a summer devoted largely to the chamber music of Franz Schubert. music.

Never far from public sight, they made news in 1976 when they rehearsed with composer Lukas Foss in the lounge of the Pan American terminal at Kennedy International Airport – the only place where the busy quartet and composer could cross paths during hectic touring schedules. They were again in the headlines in 1982 when Jennings' Stradivarius violin was stolen after a concert on Nantucket Island – and it was recovered on the mainland several days later.

In 1977 the quartet won the first of two Emmy Awards (for the New England Region) for its three-part PBS broadcast "The Concord String Quartet Plays Bartok and Haydn." [5]

At Dartmouth College, each has held a position of Adjunct Associate Professor of Music. As individuals, they have performed at Dartmouth and throughout the region with great frequency. Members of the quartet have soloed with the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra in major concerti, have appeared in solo recital, and have performed with other faculty and visiting artists in a variety of chamber music contexts.

In addition to their Beethoven, Bartok, and Schubert celebrations, other significant Dartmouth performances have included a concert of new works by faculty members Jon Appleton, Lauren Levey, and Christian Wolff, a performance with their "musical godfather" Robert Mann, of some of his own music; a continuing series devoted to Mozart quartets and quintets, and concerts with celebrated guest artists including Gervase de Peyer, Richard Goode, Claude Monteux, Gilbert Kalish, Leslie Guinn, Menahem Pressler, Bernard Greenhouse, and Walter Trampler.

The quartet announced that it would disband following the 1986–87 concert season, so that its members could pursue other teaching and performing activities. [6] They left the stage as one of the few world-class quartets that had maintained its original membership throughout its lifetime.^[6]