Formed in 2007 at Boston University, the Arneis Quartet has been in residence at the Banff Centre in Canada, and has twice attended the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar in New York City, culminating in performances at Lincoln Center. As prizewinners in the 2010 ICMEC Competition, Arneis recently performed in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. The quartet serves as the core of the Arneis Ensemble, broadening its repertoire to include pieces for various combinations of strings, winds, piano and voice. Arneis will be the faculty quartet in residence at the Dana Hall School of Music starting in Fall 2010.
Arneis has coached with members of the Muir, Brentano, St. Lawrence, Emerson and Juilliard quartets as well as Bayla Keyes, Henk Guittart, Barry Shiffman, Alasdair Tait, Roger Tapping and Donald Weilerstein. Arneis has collaborated with violist Michelle LaCourse (as part of the Boston University Faculty Recital Series) and pianist Stephen Prutsman. Interdisciplinary projects are also of great interest to the quartet and the Arneis plans to pursue active relationships with literary and visual artists as well as musicologists and scholars from other disciplines. The quartet also seeks to breathe new life into the classical repertoire by performing works of contemporary composers. Arneis will be premiering Donald Wheelock’s String Quartet No. 5 and Jason Barabba’s Four Erie Canal Songs for String Quartet in the 2010-2011 season.
The members of the quartet are committed to outreach and education and are on the faculties of Boston University (adjunct), the Dana Hall School of Music, Wellesley Public Schools, and the Chestnut Hill School. Each member also maintains an active private teaching studio, and Arneis is working to enlarge its ensemble outreach presentations to local schools and community groups. The quartet has performed in various venues in Michigan and Ohio on its 2010 Midwest Tour, and has been invited to participate in the Deer Valley Music Festival in Park City, UT and the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar at Stanford University.
The quartet’s namesake is the Arneis grape. Arneis (literally: little rascal, in Piedmontese) is so called because it is regarded as a somewhat difficult grape to grow, but with care and patience it can produce an exquisite white wine. Works of chamber music can be equally finicky, and the struggle of a winemaker with the Arneis grape aptly describes the process of preparing a musical work for performance.
photo by Eugenia Chung
