Success sweetens string quartet’s tenure

Success sweetens string quartet’s tenure
Jasper String Quartet leaves Rice big winners

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

Fresh off a whirlwind summer filled with music festivals, competitions and awards, members of the Jasper String Quartet had yet another reason to celebrate: an August wedding of their cellist, Rachel Henderson, and their violinist, J Freivogel.

	COURTESY OF DAVID LONG
	Pictured from left are Sae Niwa, Rachel Henderson, J Freivogel and Sam Quintal.

The marriage is telling of this close-knit group — Henderson, Freivogel, Sae Niwa and Sam Quintal — most of whom had already been playing together for a few years before coming to the Shepherd School of Music.

“When we came to Rice, we felt like we had something to say, but not the tools and quartet technique to bring it across,” Henderson said. “At the Shepherd School we learned by our teachers’ examples how to put ourselves forward so that we would be taken more seriously as a group and how to organize ourselves.”

The organization has paid off. In the past year, the Jasper String Quartet has won the grand prize and audience prize in the Plowman Competition, the grand prize at the Coleman Competition, first prize at the Yellow Springs Competition and second prize at the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition, and they earned a place in the Borciani International Competition in Italy. Their competitors for these prizes came from top music conservatories around the world.

“Before we went to any competitions, we thought a lot about what we would like to get out of them,” Henderson said. “Of course it is nice to win, but we felt like we needed to have a broader goal so that no matter what happened, we would feel like we had accomplished something. So before we go onstage we have a few things we always remind each other of, but the most important thing for us is to have fun, be ourselves and communicate with the audience.”

Shepherd School of Music
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“Their focus, understanding, patience, energy and interpersonal skills are rare and essential in the development of a quartet of this ability,” Dunham said. “Awards are one measure of communication skills, technical expression, recognition by peers and leaders in the field. In a way, the most important signal of their success is the sequence of recognition in multiple competitions. They are not simply a facile group that can impress on a good day — the Jasper String Quartet is an ensemble of musical depth and exploration.”

The quartet attributes much of their success to the teachers they’ve had along the way, specifically Dunham; Norman Fischer, professor of cello; Cho-Liang Lin, professor of violin; and Kenneth Goldsmith, professor of violin, who helped them find their quartet’s voice and sound.

“They helped us meld our four individual voices into one voice with much more depth and complexity,” Henderson said. “Our quartet literally would not exist without the support of Dean (Robert) Yekovich and our teachers.”

Within months of enrolling at Rice, the quartet’s original second violinist decided to leave the group to pursue baroque violin in Europe. The Jasper String Quartet considered disbanding but their teachers and Yekovich, dean of the Shepherd School of Music, encouraged them and supported them in finding a new violinist. After auditioning musicians from all over the country, they selected Niwa; the group has been complete ever since. 

“Because we spend so much time together, the four of us understand each other in a significant and profound way,” Henderson said. “This is part of the whole appeal of being a quartet musician. It is this endless trek of discovering new things with each other that allows us all to grow individually and draws us each back to rehearsal every day.”

The Jasper String Quartet recently left their Rice stomping grounds to begin work with the Tokyo String Quartet at Yale University.