The Parker Quartet Appoints Ying Xue as Second Violinist

56 Pages·2010·3.95 MB·English

10/8/13: For Immediate Release
Lesley Bannatyne 617-495-2791 [email protected]

Internationally Acclaimed Parker Quartet Named Blodgett Quartet-in-Residence at
Harvard University Music Department

The Harvard University Department of Music is delighted to announce that the Parker
Quartet will join the music department teaching faculty at Harvard University beginning in
the fall of 2014.

“Thanks to the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence Program, we have been fortunate to have had
a Quartet-in-Residence for four weeks a year since 1985,” said Music Department chair
Alexander Rehding. “However, the role of performance in the music department and the
University has changed significantly, and this is the right time to bring professional musicians
to campus as full-time residents. We are confident that the extended exposure to the string
quartet will be highly beneficial to our students, especially our many talented undergraduate
performers, allowing them to engage in the practice of chamber music on an unprecedented
scale. We welcome the Parker Quartet to Harvard with immense pleasure.”

The renowned Parker Quartet (Daniel Chong, Ying Xue, violin; Jessica Bodner, viola; Kee-
Hyun Kim, cello) will, as part of the expanded Blodgett residency, present free concerts each
year for the general public and recitals as part of the Dean’s Noontime concert series. They
will teach, participate in class demonstrations, read and perform student compositions, and
coach Harvard undergraduate chamber ensembles in weekly master classes for Harvard
credit. The Parker Quartet’s full time presence in the program will allow for the expansion of
the chamber music and performance study opportunities for students in the Harvard
University Music Department.

“With our relocation back to Boston and the invitation to join the faculty of Harvard
University’s Department of Music, this is truly a special time for the quartet. The Blodgett
Artists-in-Residence Program has a wonderful history of hosting established quartets and
with its new expansion into a full-time position, we are honored to have the opportunity to
share our artistry with the Harvard community. We look forward to our appointment with
great excitement.”

Formed in 2002, the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet has rapidly distinguished itself
as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation. The New York Times hailed the quartet
as “something extraordinary,” and the Boston Globe acclaims their “pinpoint precision and
spectacular sense of urgency.” The quartet began touring on the international circuit after
winning the Concert Artists Guild Competition as well as the Grand Prix and Mozart Prize
at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in France. Chamber Music
America awarded the quartet the prestigious biennial Cleveland Quartet Award for the 2009-
2011 seasons.
Performance highlights from recent seasons include appearances at Carnegie Hall, 92nd
Street Y, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Library of Congress, Concertgebouw in
Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London, Musikverein in Vienna, Monte Carlo Spring Festival,
Seoul Arts Center, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele
in Germany, and San Miguel de Allende Festival in Mexico. The quartet recently
collaborated with artists including Kim Kashkashian, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Anne-
Marie McDermott, Shai Wosner, Jörg Widmann, and Claron McFaddon. In 2012 the Parker
Quartet was the recipient of a Chamber Music America commissioning grant, enabling the
ensemble to commission and premiere Capriccio, an hour-length work by American composer
Jeremy Gill. This upcoming season includes return engagements to Carnegie Hall, Library of
Congress, and Monte Carlo Spring Festival, performances of the Beethoven quartets on the
Slee Series in Buffalo, and collaborations with Kikuei Ikeda of the now retired Tokyo String
Quartet.
Successful early concert touring in Europe helped the quartet forge a relationship with Zig-
Zag Territoires, which released their debut commercial recording of Bartók’s String Quartets
Nos. 2 and 5 in July 2007. The disc earned high praise from numerous critics, including
Gramophone: “The Parkers’ Bartók spins the illusion of spontaneous improvisation… they
have absorbed the language; they have the confidence to play freely with the music and the
instinct to bring it off.” The quartet’s second recording, of György Ligeti’s complete works
for string quartet was released on Naxos in December 2009 to critical acclaim. This
recording won the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance.
Currently based in Boston, the Parker Quartet holds teaching and performance residencies at
the University of South Carolina and the University of St. Thomas. From 2008 to 2013, the
quartet spent much of its time in St. Paul, MN, where they served as Quartet-in-Residence
with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (2008-2010), were the first-ever Artists-in-Residence
with Minnesota Public Radio (2009-2010), and visiting artists at the University of Minnesota
(2011-2012).
The Parker Quartet’s members hold graduate degrees in performance and chamber music
from the New England Conservatory of Music and were part of the New England
Conservatory’s prestigious Professional String Quartet Training Program from 2006-
2008. Some of their most influential mentors include the Cleveland Quartet, Kim
Kashkashian, György Kurtág, and Rainer Schmidt.
The Parker Quartet will begin their residency at Harvard in the fall of 2014 through the
Blodgett Artist-in-Residence program, made possible through a gift from Mr. and Mrs. John
W. Blodgett, Jr. The program is now in its 29th year.
www.parkerquartet.com
PARKER QUARTET
May 3, 2013

The Parker Quartet Appoints Ying Xue as Second Violinist

It is with great pleasure that the PARKER QUARTET announces the appointment of Ying Xue as the quartet's
second violinist beginning May 1, 2013. An accomplished chamber musician and soloist, Ms. Xue has played and
collaborated with many of the world's great orchestras and artists. A fellow graduate of the New England Conservatory
of Music, Ms. Xue received graduate degrees in performance and chamber music under the tutelage of Donald
Weilerstein and Miriam Fried. She returns to the United States following continued studies at the Musikhochschule
Lübeck with Heime Müller. With her appointment to the Parker Quartet, Ms. Xue will join the ensemble's extensive
2013-14 touring season as well as their Quartet-in-Residence position at the University of South Carolina School of
Music. Ms. Xue replaces violinist Karen Kim, who retired from the quartet in February after ten years to pursue other
artistic endeavors. Of this appointment Ms. Xue states: "It has been my dream for a very long time to dedicate myself
to a string quartet. Now, not only do I have the privilege to join the Parker Quartet, but more importantly, join three
beautiful and inspiring musicians on a musical journey for many years. I could not be more thrilled."

Parker Quartet cellist, Kee-Hyun Kim, states: "Immediately upon reading the first few notes of a simple Bach Chorale
together with Ying, I felt the three of us heave a collective sigh of relief and delight. Without any words being spoken,
she was able to mold and integrate herself into our collective sound, blending herself seamlessly as well as asserting
her individual presence! Her sound, her artistry and her vision was so aligned with ours, and we all knew from that
first instant that she was the one. Daniel, Jessica and I are incredibly excited to embark on this new chapter of the
quartet with Ying, and we look forward to many years of inspired music-making."

YING XUE
An accomplished and versatile soloist and chamber musician Ying Xue has won accolades on the competition stage
around the world. She is the second prizewinner of the 2011 International Mozart Competition Salzburg, first
prizewinner of the 2007 Corpus Christi Competition, and has won medals at the Corpus Christi, Irving M. Klein
International and New England Conservatory Concerto competitions among others. As a soloist, she has appeared with
the Camerata Salzburg, Nanning Symphony Orchestra, Jinfan Symphony Orchestra, and NEC Symphony Orchestra. A
passionate chamber musician, Ms. Xue has collaborated with artists of international acclaim including Donald
Weilerstein, András Schiff, Pamela Frank, Kim Kashkashian, and Gidon Kremer among many others. She has been
engaged by the Kronberg Chamber Music, Caramoor, Ravinia and Yellow Barn Music festivals, as well as the Winter
Chamber Festival in Israel.

Born in Urumqi, China, Ms. Xue began her violin studies at age 4. Ms. Xue received graduate degrees in performance
and chamber music under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried as the recipient of the Irene M. Stare
Presidential Scholarship at the New England Conservatory. In 2012 Ms. Xue moved to Germany to continue her
musical studies with Heime Müller at the Musikhochschule Lübeck.

THE PARKER QUARTET
Hailed by The New York Times as “something extraordinary” and by the Boston Globe for their “virtuosic, utterly
assured...assiduously cultivated blend of sound,” the GRAMMY Award-winning Parker Quartet has distinguished itself
Parker Quartet
May 3, 2013
page 2 of 2

as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation. The quartet began its professional touring career in 2002 and
garnered international acclaim in 2005, winning the Concert Artists Guild Competition as well as the Grand Prix and
Mozart Prize at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in France. In 2009, Chamber Music America
awarded the quartet the prestigious biennial Cleveland Quartet Award for the 2009-2011 seasons.

From 2008 until 2010, the Parker Quartet served as the first ever Quartet-in-Residence with the Saint Paul Chamber
Orchestra (SPCO). During the 2009-2010 season, the quartet was also the first-ever Artists-in-Residence with
Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and American Public Media (APM).

For more on the Parker Quartet including season highlights and upcoming projects and recordings, click here.
PARKER QUARTET
Quartetville blog  October 12, 2012

Interview with the Parker Quartet
BY SAM BERGMAN

We caught up recently with three members of the Parker Quartet: violinist Daniel Chong, violist Jessica Bodner, and
cellist Kee-Hyun Kim. You can read more about the Parker Quartet here.
: What is the personal dynamic of working so closely together with three other people?
Dan: Playing in a string quartet is probably one of the most intimate forms of making music. You don‟t have somebody
to guide you, somebody who serves as the ultimate say. You have four people coming into a room as equals. That
environment promotes a lot of passion, a lot of discussion, a lot of compromising. But, ultimately, when you reach
something together as equals, it‟s incredibly rewarding.
: How important has mentorship been in your career, both in terms of the teachers who you‟ve had and the work you‟ve
done in passing your knowledge to other musicians and to students?
Jess: Mentorship has been incredibly important in all ways. Our whole schooling, we were so fortunate to work with
people who not only were great teachers but also were great performers. It was so amazing to see how they
communicated their thoughts. It‟s something to aspire to in our own teaching. We love to work with different people,
different levels of players—not only the technical side but also on the joy of working together.
: Let‟s go back to childhood. When did each of you start playing? Was it on the instrument you play now, or did you
switch at some point, and what made you gravitate to music?
Jess: I started on violin when I was two, after seeing Itzhak Perlman on Sesame Street. I played violin until I was 11 or
12. I remember very vividly that I loved practicing in the lower register of the violin. My teacher recognized this and
also something about my personality and she suggested that I try the viola. I practiced both for about a year, and then I
thought, “There‟s no reason for me to practice violin anymore, because I love the viola so much.”
Dan: My mother studied piano and composition and she got me to begin on violin. I think she chose it mainly because
my older brother played violin and she thought consolidating us to one instrument was easier.
Kee: I started when I was six, on the cello. I was always exposed to a lot of music. My mom was a piano and
composition teacher; my sister played piano. I was always attracted to the cello, maybe because I saw that they sat
down all the time. I played clarinet for band in middle school. I played trombone for a year, but cello is the one that
stuck.
: Did any of you go to summer music programs when you were kids? Where did you go and what impact did that have?
Dan: A big place for me during the summers was Encore School for Strings, which doesn‟t exist anymore,
unfortunately. More recently, Yellow Barn and Marlboro have been huge inspirations for me. I love those summer
music festivals because you‟re in it together with a small group of people who are so passionate about the same thing.
Being in an environment where all you have to do is concentrate on making music and having fun is wonderful.
Parker Quartet
Quartetville blog  October 12, 2012
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Jess: For me, the first one was the Disney Youth Orchestra. I don‟t know if it‟s still going on. I did that when I was 11.
It was so fun. After that I went to Interlochen for a few summers and then Musicorda, which also doesn‟t exist any
more.
Kee: When I was 14, I went to Aspen. I don‟t think that was a good fit for a 14 year-old. The summers after that were
all geared towards chamber music. I went to the Perlman Music Program and to Kneisel Hall and Music Academy of
the West, which was where I met Dan for the first time.
: Talk a little about practicing, not rehearsing together, but the individual practice that you have to put in. Did you
always like practicing? What were your strategies for powering through on the days when nothing was going right?
Jess: When I was younger, I would go in and out of practicing and my parents would have to tell me to practice. But
when I got into middle school and high school, at a certain point I really felt, “This is my responsibility.”
Around that time, one of my teachers said, “You have to practice three hours a day. That is an absolute.” And so, I
would say, “Okay. Well, I have scales to practice, I have an etude, I have this piece and this piece… How am I going to
fill three hours?” And just the matter of scheduling how much time I was going to spend on each thing was very
helpful. If I‟d decided to practice scales for half an hour, I would get to 20 minutes, and then I‟d say, “I‟m supposed to
practice this for ten more minutes.” If you set that schedule for yourself, then you make yourself find more things to do.
You get better and figure out how to practice on our own.
Now, I think practicing is really special. It‟s your own alone time to craft and explore what you‟re doing outside of
rehearsals, to formulate your own ideas about things before you meet together.
Dan: I certainly have a love/hate relationship with practicing. It was more hate in the early days. But now, I enter a
practice session and think of it as an opportunity not only to learn the music that I need to learn but to hone my craft. I
get in this mindset of not feeling pressured to accomplish set things, but using the time to explore and build and be
constantly inspired to be a better player. It‟s not just about learning a particular piece.
Kee: I was thinking about this today, actually. How practicing is like running, really, whether you love it or hate it.
„Cause there‟s days when it can be either. The most important thing is consistency. You have to keep doing it and the
more you do it, the more you‟ll enjoy it. I never used to enjoy practicing. I always just practiced enough to get by. But,
I don‟t know, I love playing. If you don‟t think of it as practice and work, but as a way to—like Dan and Jess have just
said—have it be your own time, where you can just fool around with the instrument and play and produce whatever
sounds and be creative and just enjoy it. It‟s all about the joy of creation and getting better. Why wouldn‟t you want to
do that?
PARKER QUARTET
Boston Globe  June 18, 2012

Parker String Quartet delivers at Rockport
BY MATTHEW GUERRIER

ROCKPORT — The string quartet is not as old a technological advance as some — gunpowder, movable type, and
double-entry bookkeeping all predate it — but it is old enough to be taken for granted. That is probably why the sound
of the string quartet, paradoxically, does not sound as dated as the electronic sounds it is paired with in Leon Kirchner’s
String Quartet No. 3, the centerpiece of the Parker String Quartet’s concert on Friday at the Rockport Chamber Music
Festival.
In Kirchner’s defense, those electronic sounds are vintage 1966, epochs ago by computer science standards. And,
really, no matter: The quartet is a great piece, a generous dose of the sort of muscular, pragmatically emotive
modernism that Kirchner, who died in 2009, at 90, could do better than almost anyone.
There are places in the quartet where Kirchner plays with congruent special effects on tape and on string: a Sputnik-like
beep morphing into glassy harmonics from violinist Daniel Chong and violist Jessica Bodner, avian electronic burbles
sparking a fizz of passagework from Chong and fellow violinist Karen Kim, cellist Kee-Hyun Kim laying down a
thumping, drum-like pizzicato met by similarly hollow resonance from the speakers. But mostly, the electronics exist to
goad the quartet into streetwise expressionism, lean and tough, eerie then explosive, something between a noir
detective and a space-age Dante. The Parker’s performance was intense, virtuosic, utterly assured.
Indeed, the group thrives on combinations of intricacy and power. Their touchstones are precision and an assiduously
cultivated blend of sound — focused and wiry at its core and, whatever the style, so well-matched that it can be
difficult to tell where one instrument leaves off and another begins. It can also produce a kind of hermetic quality, as in
the opener, Mozart’s F major Quartet, K. 590: all taut, short-bowed control and tightly coiled phrases, pinning the
music’s eccentric pauses and sudden accents with aggressive propriety.
If the Mozart felt like it was in macro-lens close-up, the Parker’s playing in Robert Schumann’s A major Quartet, Op.
41, No. 3, was more wide-angle, more full-blooded, with more depth of field in the byplay between instruments, and
more range of color, jumping headlong into every one of Schumann’s quick-changing moods. Both refined and rustic,
flipping the discourse from inward to outward on a dime, the Parker made the technology of the string quartet so user-
friendly as to be invisible.
PARKER QUARTET
The Boston Musical Intelligencer  June 17, 2012

Parker Quartet Gives Rockport Something Big
BY LYLE DAVIDSON

Parking was hard to find. The hall was filled. Something big was about to happen at Rockport’s Shalin Liu
Performance Center last Friday night. Area concert goers gathered to hear some of the best quartet playing imaginable,
playing that The New York Times referred to as ―something extraordinary.‖ The Grammy Award-winning Parker
Quartet was in town performing Mozart’s last string quartet, K. 590 in F Major, Leon Kirchner’s 1967 Pulitzer Prize-
winning Quartet No. 3 for String Quartet and Electronic Tape, and the quartet Robert Schumann wrote in four days, his
Op 41, No. 3 in A Major. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that, as an NEC faculty member, I have known
these players since their student days not so many years ago.
For those unfamiliar with the Shalin Liu Performance Center, the wall behind the stage is made of glass, providing a
sweeping view of the ocean. Beautiful as the backdrop was on this cool, clear evening, all attention was soon focused
exclusively on Kee-Hyun Kim, cello, Jessica Bodner, viola, Karen Kim, second violin, and Daniel Chong, first violin.
The Parker Quartet has been participating in the Rockport Chamber Music Festival since 2005, so it was like greeting
old friends.
Quartet playing is supposed to be hard: these four players made it seem easy. They made the audience smile and nod in
response to their obvious delight in the music and in performing. Constantly in touch with each other, they moved and
breathed as one beautifully musical organism. Imbued with their strong rhythmic sense, the music of every piece
flowed and ebbed with grace. There were four individual players on stage, each one a strong personality, but as in all
great chamber groups, they created the effect of being one.
The hushed mood of the first two long notes of the opening measure of Mozart’s last quartet was startlingly interrupted
by the accented third note and then thrown down with a vigorous descending scale. By the end of the first phrase, it was
clear that we were going to hear some truly extraordinary playing. Mozart’s K. 590, written in June of 1790, was one of
three string quartets he finished for King Frederick William II. The King played cello, and it is clear from the part that
he was a good player. So is Kee-Hyun Kim; he brought great presence to every aspect of the part, even in the long
pedal notes. The evident fun of the viola part suggests that Mozart, himself, may have played it. Jessica Bodner carried
the part with wit and musicality that the composer surely would have appreciated.
First violinist Daniel Chong introduced Kirchner’s third quartet with a brief story that placed the odd pairing of
electronic sounds with string sounds in historical context. The opening dialogues between tape and string quartet set up
various relationships, sometimes mutually supportive, sometimes protesting what had just been heard. The tutti
scrambles were delightful. There were stunning moments in which the quartet blended its sounds with the tape so
smoothly that it was difficult to identify which sound source one was hearing. The ending was stunning: The recorded
tape texture introduced the last moments, and then the slow ascending chords of the quartet emerged and wiped the
recording away.
The opening phrases of Schumann’s Quartet Op. 41 No. 3 convincingly conveyed the search for the right key; the
offbeats of the higher strings that accompany the beautiful cello line (which gets passed to violin I) were easy and solid
without being pedantic. (One sometimes hears the effect of counting during this passage.) The opening phrases of the
agitato second movement that features third-beat beginnings were like sighs. The cello’s explosive power that brought
Parker Quartet
The Boston Musical Intelligencer  June 17, 2012
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in the ―almost fugue‖ built to enormous power as each instrument entered in succession from bottom to top. Then, as
one, the ensemble turned sweet as the first violin and viola traded phrases of delight that the second violin and cello
could not resist. In long and soft octave pedal points, the first violin and cello framed the second violin and viola, who
wandered in murmuring sixths until the cello finally persuaded everyone to pick up the ascending fourths that ever so
delicately brought the movement to a close.
The slow movement is a jewel. While the other parts play with another ascending fourth motive, the dum – pa dum – pa
dum of the dotted eighths and sixteenths that are so much a part of Schumann’s vocabulary were articulated with such
subtlety by Karen Kim’s quiet energy that the music was moved forward without effort. Throughout the movement and
indeed, the entire evening, Daniel Chong, always sure and ―right on,‖ led the group with rich nuances and through
many breathtaking ritards with total security.
The opening of the final movement is a refrain that one often comes to dread, because the insistent rhythm of dotted
eighths and sixteenth (again) is so overplayed. The Parker Quartet turns this into a burst of energy that brings the
listener willingly back to the beginning from any one of the diverse paths the piece has taken — the best performance I
have ever heard of this movement, of this piece.
The Parker Quartet has two CDs out, one containing Bartok’s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 5, and the Grammy Award-
winning recording of Ligeti’s First and Second Quartets. The Quartet plans to release a recording of Haydn quartets
within the year.