The Chiara String Quartet performed six concerts in nine days as part of a tour of South Korea from Sept. 22-Oct. 2.
The Chiara includes Rebecca Fischer and Hye-Yung Julie Yoon, violins; Jonah Sirota, viola; and Gregory Beaver, cello. The Chiara have been in residence at UNL since 2005.
“This is the second time we have been, so it was a little bit more familiar for me and Jonah,” Fischer said. “Julie and Greg have been there before. It’s just one of the most extraordinary countries I’ve ever been to, and the food is so good.”
One of the largest concerts they performed in was at a venue Fischer called “The Lincoln Center of Korea,” the Seoul Arts Center on Sept. 27.
“It’s a huge complex that contains all kinds of performing arts, including opera and orchestra. It’s even larger in size than Lincoln Center,” Fischer said. “It was a real honor to play there. They have a wonderful chamber hall.”
Yoon and Beaver, who are married, spent the summer in Korea with their daughter. During that time, Beaver took intensive Korean language classes, so he was able to give the speeches during their concerts in Korean.
“Every time he would stand up and start speaking, the audience would go, ‘Ooohhh!’” Fischer said. “There was an amazing reaction to the fact that Greg was speaking in Korean.”
The Chiara also taught masterclasses at Seoul National University.
“It’s an extraordinary bunch of students,” Fischer said. “It was a treat to work with them. There’s a very strong tradition for classical music education in Korea, so there are a quite a lot of very talented students who come from South Korea. When working with the students it’s amazing how many musical concepts can be translated without words.”
The Chiara also performed a special fund-raising concert at Gildam Seowon, an independent bookstore owned by a friend of Yoon’s father.
“There were about 50 people packed in, and it was one of the hotter concerts I’ve ever played,” Fischer said.
But it was also a special concert.
“For a lot of our career, we’ve been focusing on trying to create more intimate environments for our concerts, so this was the ideal situation,” she said. “We were in a very inspiring location, a place of higher learning and exploration, and we were playing Haydn and Schubert, which was originally written for this kind of salon or small gathering environment—really a literal chamber. So there was our mission as a quartet right there. It was very special.”
They also performed at the Seoul City Hall during a festival, where a number of artists were performing in the city hall complex.
“We played Korean folk songs with singers. With the folk songs that Hyeyung picked for us to play, it’s a different kind of experience than it is in the United States because there are certain songs that you can play, but they would all be related to the state, like ‘God Bless America’ or ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’” Fischer said. “The Korean folk songs are just part of the culture, and they’re beautiful pieces of music that everyone knows. I keep thinking about those songs and keep hearing them in my head.”
They also performed for the HOUSE series at the Janseong Arts Center in Gangneung. The series was started by an exceptional pianist who held concerts in his house for years, and now the students who worked with him and studied with him have started concerts around the country.
“The series in Janseong was in a black box theatre. I think it was an old church that was made into a vibrant location for these types of concerts,” Fischer said. “And they even have a guest house, so you can stay when you play there. It’s just a lovely way to have concerts.”
Except for the Korean folk songs, the Chiara String Quartet played the entire tour by heart with no music, which is something they just started doing recently for many of their concerts.
At first they began with one piece they were playing by heart, “Death and the Maiden” by Franz Schubert.
“’Death and the Maiden' is the first piece the Chiara Quartet ever played together when Greg and I started playing together in high school 20 years ago,” Fischer said. “We’ve also played this piece may times in our 14 years as a professional quartet, so we found that we didn’t need the music. It was so much a part of our DNA at this point, and we felt like it was only right for us to play it by heart.”
Playing without the music helps the Chiara connect with each other.
“It makes us know the music more intimately, so we started rehearsing without music. We have it on the side, and we can actually sit closer to each other because there are no stands,” Fischer said.
The Chiara String Quartet have already received an invitation to return and perform again at the Seoul Arts Center next Fall.
“I want to go back. It’s a place where I feel very comfortable even though I don’t speak the language,” Fischer said. “There’s a reverence for art within the reality of a high-paced environment, and it feels so natural. I also keep longing for the food!”
The Chiara String Quartet will perform in Lincoln in the second concert of their Hixson-Lied Concert Series on Thursday, Nov. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in Kimball Recital Hall. Tickets are $20 adults, $10 for seniors and $5 for students and are available from the Lied Center Box Office at (402) 472-4747 or (800) 432-3231 or at the door.
They will be performing three of Bartok’s String Quartets: No. 2 in A minor, Op. 17; String Quartet No. 4; and String Quartet No. 6.
“The Bartok pieces are not memorized,” Fischer said. “But we’re working on it for more Bartok concerts in the spring.”
For more information on the Chiara String Quartet, visit http://www.chiaraquartet.net.