The upcoming home concert series of the Ives Quartet will once again be an exploration into thought-provoking, powerful works. This exploration is not just a passion of the Quartet’s, but their mission.
The Ives Quartet is focused on education and audience engagement. They recently explored their upcoming concerts in depth with an intimate audience through their Salon Series. The discussion with the audience extended beyond the themes of the pieces, to modern instruments and performance styles. “The audience learned a lot and we brought them into our rehearsal process. … It’s a lot of fun,” said Jodi Levitz, the quartet's violist.
The group is determined, through programs like these, to share innovative music with the world. This goal also shapes every repertoire choice they make as well as how they present this work to their audiences. “Our program choices are dictated by our mission.” said Levitz while explaining in depth the process by which their programs are crafted. Multiple themes stretch over many years: For example, the May series includes an exploration of the second of Haydn's Op. 50 string quartets as a complement to last September's concerts, which contained the first quartet in that set.
The highlight of this program will be a commissioned work by Elinor Armer, a longtime colleague of Levitz and violinist Bettina Mussumeli at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. That makes this artistic partnership has been different from others the Ives players have experienced. “It started because Bettina and I are really good friends with Ellie and she had already written us a piece. She said to us ‘You know, I want to write you guys a quartet.’” With that proclamation, Armer was off and running.
The Ives Quartet has worked with numerous composers on commissioned works, and all of them have unique styles resulting in many different rehearsal and collaborations. “The cool thing about Ellie is, she’ll write it but she gives you a lot of freedom,” Levitz reported. This sentiment was shared by Mussumeli: “Ellie is very into the sound and what the color is. It’s much closer to Debussy.”
After providing the Quartet with the finished piece, Ellie joined them at a rehearsal and shared the story of the piece. “The way she describes music is so clear,” Levitz explained, “and it gives us a perfect concept.” The concept melded with the other pieces on the program, and once again focused on the purpose of the Ives Quartet. “It’s about framework and it’s about a thread. It’s not just a single concert. It goes back to the mission. It’s just what we’re about.”