Friday, April 24, 1998
People’s choice
MUSIC: The Alexander String Quartet lets the audience decide
each program’s repetoire
By Ai Goldsmith
Daily Bruin Contributor
"Choose Your Own Adventures" aren’t just for books anymore. On
Sunday, the Alexander Quartet performs an interactive concert,
allowing audience members to choose the repertoire.
While standard concert format allows the artists to create their
own program, this innovative event titled "Audience Chooses
Beethoven" asks the audience to choose three out of 16 string
quartets from the complete cycle of Beethoven’s string
quartets.
Melvin Kaplan, manager of the Alexander String Quartet, explains
that the concert continues to celebrate the completion of their
recording of Beethoven’s string quartets.
"The quartet wanted to perform three Beethoven quartets (in
concert) and I told them that I didn’t think the audiences would
want to have that," Kaplan says. "(So I asked) ‘Are you willing to
come with all 16 quartets and have the audience choose it?’ To me,
it seemed like the nth degree of audience participation."
The concert does not merely offer the opportunity for the
quartet to perform Beethoven’s string quartets. The Alexander
Quartet’s "choose your own Beethoven quartet" concert was created
with the audiences’ interests in mind.
"There are couple of reasons that we decided to do this," says
cellist Sandy Wilson. "(Beethoven’s 16 quartets) are so revered
among enthusiasts of string quartets that the real afficionados
know them all and have favorites.
"We also thought that the presenters would find it an
interesting idea … that the audiences would become enthusiastic
about the idea of being able to articulate their favorites and put
together a program in that way," Wilson says. "It is intended to be
fun."
Although the concert allows the audience to choose the program,
Wilson says that there are times when the quartet advises the
audience.
"We advise the audience that some programs wouldn’t make good
programs," Wilson points out. "If you put it together in a wrong
way, you could end up with three extremely long quartets. That
would make it an exhausting evening for both the performers and the
audiences."
So far, the performers have enjoyed much success with audiences
in New York, Vermont and New Orleans to name a few.
"(The concert) has generated tremendous amount of enthusiasm
from the audience, but I have to also say that there are people who
are disappointed because they don’t get to hear their choice,"
Wilson says.
Wilson calls this format as a high maintenance concert since no
two programs are alike. Every day, the quartet practices four
different quartets at random in order to stay in shape. Yet, the
group finds that this type of programming, not knowing what is to
be played beforehand, helps to keep the music exciting.
"It keeps it fresh because we are ready to jump in and play,"
Wilson says. "There is no way that you can play the concert and
feel like an old one because every permutation changes the
concert."
MUSIC: The Alexander String Quartet performs "Audience Chooses
Beethoven" on Sunday at 8 p.m. in Schoenberg Hall. For more
information, call (310) 825-2101.
Melvin Kaplan Incorporated
The Alexander String Quartet will play "Audience Chooses
Beethoven" Sunday in Schoenberg Hall.