We are delighted to post this report from the Maxwell Quartet on their experiences of their week on Coll!
The Maxwell Quartet on Tunnell Trust Music Coll 2014We were resident at the Tunnell Trust Music Coll 2014 course from 27th June-7th July 2014. It was an intensive week of learning and developing as an ensemble, and we consider it to have been hugely beneficial to us, focusing our skills and developing our artistry as a string quartet in a way that we have never previously encountered.
Our group formed in 2010, but since then we have undergone a couple of personnel changes, so cementing the very close-knit working relationship that is necessary in a chamber ensemble needs time and hard work. We all considered ourselves to be great friends and enjoy working together, but due to the constraints of each of our busy schedules which involve teaching, studying, orchestral and freelance playing, it can be hard to find the time and space required to foster this important aspect of being a chamber music ensemble. The Tunnell Trust Course on the isle of Coll could not have been more ideally set up to gently encourage this aspect of our development. We were given an ideal location, on the peaceful and beautiful isle of Coll, with plenty of freedom to explore the great outdoors; great food and warm hospitality from the An Cridhe staff; very comfortable and sociable shared accomodation at the Bunkhouse; and a spacious, state of the art venue in which to rehearse, to share musical ideas and eventually to perform to one of the most engaging and supportive audiences we have ever performed to.
The course was organised very effectively by Jonathan Tunnell and his team, ensuring that there was constantly a balance of intensive training from tutors, rehearsal time for ensembles to digest the new ideas given to them by the tutors, and also free time to explore the surroundings and to reflect on the music-making throughout the week. The course deliberately fostered a collaborative, non-competitive atmosphere in a number of ways; firstly, by having four different ensembles (a string quartet, wind quintet, clarinet/viola/piano, and piano trio) which meant there was no sense of 'direct competition' between the groups; secondly by having a team of the kindest, most interesting, generous and helpful tutors we have encountered, who saw no need to keep any sort of boundary between the students and the tutors and whom we socialised with throughout the week; thirdly by encouraging the ensembles to collaborate with one another in the evenings, in children's workshops and in informal concerts, where lesser-known repertoire for mixed ensembles was played. We have never encountered such a refreshing sense of community at a chamber music course, as far removed from the 'claws-out' competitive atmosphere which some of us experience on other courses and at Conservatoires as one could imagine. The benefits of this atmosphere are of course enormous in helping young musicians develop their own musical ideas, performance skills and artistic confidence in a positive way.
Particular highlights for the quartet included our performances, which included Bartok's extremely difficult String Quartet No. 4, a work which demands very focused and intense study to be able to perform accurately - and Schubert's profound late quartet "Death & the Maiden", which demands a high level of focused work and an emotional understanding of the work. The Tunnell Trust Course allowed us to focus on these works in great depth, giving us time on our own as well as time to work with some of the most experienced tutors we could have hoped for, including Charles Tunnell (cello), and Richard Deakin (violin). We learnt so much from these tutors, who have decades of performing and teaching experience to share with us. We spent time with them working on our sound, developing our musical ideas - really pulling out new ideas from the music with every session. Because the tutors were so interesting and personable we were able to respond and adapt to what they suggested to us straight away, allowing us to take on board so many new ways of doing things in a short space of time. We really challenged and pushed ourselves, spurred on by encouragement from the tutors, and were surprised that by the end of the week we were able to give convincing and exciting performances of these works.
Another performance highlight was performing the first movement of Schubert's Quintet in C with Jonathan Tunnell - playing this piece alongside Jonathan, who has performed the work with many of the world's great quartets, was an honour.
The children's workshop was also very special for us because it gave us the chance to communicate what we were doing to an audience of younger people, and allowed us a sense of connecting with the local community whose island we felt very fortunate to be staying on. We enjoyed collaborating with the wind quintet, both in this workshop and for performing Martinu's Nonet for strings and wind.
On the final evening, we had our own private ceilidh where we all learnt Scottish dances and tunes. It was great fun, but also a very memorable event: there was a shared sense among everybody that we had made some true friends, shared some very special musical experiences, and certainly that none of us wanted to return to the mainland (and back to the real world) the following day.
The course has spurred us on to thinking about various forthcoming schemes, programmes and competitions that we hope will take our career as a quartet to the next level. It has given us a great deal of confidence in our abilities as a quartet. It has strengthened our conviction that this is what we love doing, and that we would like to fully commit ourselves to succeeding as a string quartet. We are extremely grateful to have been given this opportunity, and we cannot recommend it highly enough to other ensembles. We hope that this unique and amazing experience will be able to continue for years to come.
