RESEARCH General Arts

MUSIC
Renowned Pacifica Quartet to perform, teach in residency at Illinois

Melissa Mitchell, News Editor
(217) 333-5491; melissa@uiuc.edu

9/1/03

Photo by Robin Holland Pacifica Quartet, from left, Masumi Per Rostad, Simin Ganatra, Brandon Vamos and Sibbi Bernhardsson, begin a three-year residency at the UI.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The Pacifica Quartet, generally regarded as one of the most dynamic string ensembles touring today, maintains an ambitious concert schedule that keeps the group constantly on the move. This past month has been no exception; the pace just ratcheted up a notch.

In between a residency at Interlochen music camp in Michigan and an appearance at the prestigious Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland, the quartet had some serious moving to do – the kind that involves boxes and moving vans. For the next three years, Pacifica’s new home base will be the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Besides serving as the School of Music’s resident string ensemble, Pacifica members will have appointments on the school’s faculty, pending approval of the university’s board of trustees.

"They are quite a catch," said music school director Karl Kramer, who noted that "a confluence of circumstances" brought the ensemble – which formed in 1994 in California – to the university.

"They were doing part-time things and were looking for a place to coagulate, and we were looking for an ensemble to regenerate our string program." At Illinois, Pacifica members Simin Ganatra, first violin; Sibbi Bernhardsson, second violin; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; and Brandon Vamos, cello, will give private, studio lessons and will perform a three-concert series during the 2003-04 season at the university’s Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. The first performance is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 26.

Kramer said Pacifica also plans to keep up a rigorous touring schedule while based at Illinois and expects the quartet "will serve as ambassadors for the University of Illinois" while on the road.

"We’re excited about coming there," Ganatra said. "We’ve been looking for a school, and there are so many great opportunities for us at Illinois." Among the enticements that lured them downstate from Chicago, where they’ve had part-time residencies at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, was the chance to help build a new Chamber Music Institute from the ground up.

Kramer said the school plans to launch the institute next year. "It will draw preformed groups that have previously performed together and want to take advantage of what the School of Music and Krannert Center has to offer," he said. The program is designed to equip young artists with skills in both music and performing-arts management. "It takes both sides of the coin – musical experience and business sense – to succeed today," said Kramer, who added that "nobody else is doing this."

Ganatra said "it would’ve been great if such a program had been available when we were starting out" because – as a professional touring ensemble – "not only are you concerned with your performing career, but you’re running your own small business."

While serving on the Illinois faculty, Pacifica will continue as resident string quartet at the University of Chicago. This fall the ensemble also begins a two-year appointment as Resident Quartet of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Two, in New York.