Anderson Quartet to Give First Rice Recital

Anderson Quartet to Give First Rice Recital

BY DAVID KAPLAN
Rice News Staff
November 18, 1999

They have given concerts at Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Chateau Cantanac-Brown in Bordeaux, France.

They also perform in soup kitchens, kindergarten classrooms, institutions for the criminally insane and juvenile correctional facilities.

The Anderson String Quartet believes that classical music is literally meant for everyone. In fact, they say it is their mission to create new and diverse audiences for chamber music.

“We’re trying to break down that barrier, the belief that classical music is elitist,” says cellist Michael Cameron.

They entered the Shepherd School this fall to study in the Quartet Training Program under the direction of Professor of Cello Paul Katz and will study at Rice for two years.

On Dec. 2 the Anderson Quartet will give its first Shepherd School recital, performing Beethoven’s “Quartet in C minor, Op. 18 No. 4,” Singelton’s “Quartet No. 1 ‘Secret Desire to Be Black'” and Brahms’ “Piano Quintet in F minor” (Jeanne Kierman, piano). The concert will be at 8 p.m. in Duncan Recital Hall.

Marianne Henry, a founding member of the group, says that the musicians originally came together because they were friends who happened to be African-American. But once they saw the response they were getting from minority audiences they realized that they were role models.

The 10-year-old group has devoted itself to community outreach ever since. They are currently teaching music at Looscan Elementary School in Houston’s north side, working in conjunction with Project GRAD, a nonprofit education group, and Da Camera of Houston.

Every Friday afternoon, they teach first- and second-graders. They begin the class by performing for the children, then they split the students into four groups for music lessons. The students each have been given their own string instrument.

They see their time with the students as more than teaching scales. “It’s so much bigger than the music,” says violist Diedra Lawrence. “They’re budding human beings. Everything you do with them is important–the way you speak to them, look at them, hug them. When I take the girls to the restroom, I always have them look in the mirror and remind them of how beautiful they are. These are the kind of things that count in life.”

The lives of the Anderson Quartet musicians have certainly not been short on variety. In ’93, they performed at the inaugural celebration for President Clinton. When they first started out, they were an all female group, and they performed on New York City sidewalks for tips, drawing huge crowds that spilled into the street. They would often get marriage proposals from strangers. In ’97, Lawrence received and accepted a proposal from someone she knew—Cameron.

Winner of the International Cleveland Quartet Competition, the Anderson Quartet is the first African-American ensemble ever to win a major competition in the field of classical music. The group is named after the legendary contralto Marian Anderson.

Violinist Jeffrey Boga says the entire group is thrilled with the program at the Shepherd School, which he says includes “first-rate teaching and training, very competent colleagues and excellent facilities.”