Classical music: On Day 2 in Belgium, the University of Wisconsin Pro Arte Quartet is offered rehearsal time in a bar; meets descendants of the original members of the quartet; and performs its first concert to applause, appreciation and acclaim.

By Jacob Stockinger

Editor’s note: The Well-Tempered Ear has asked people and participants on the one-week tour in Belgium with the UW Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer) to file whatever dispatches and photos they can to keep the fans at home current with what is happening on the concert stage and off.

Thanks goodness for iPads, iPhones and other smart phones, computers and digital cameras!

Here is a link to the dramatic first installment:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/classical-music-the-university-of-wisconsin-pro-arte-quartet-lands-in-belgium-gets-detained-at-customs-and-is-rescued-in-time-for-practicing-and-playing-concerts/

And here, below, is the second installment:

After troubles at customs and catching up from jet lag, the Pro Arte Quartet got down to the business of eating and sleeping, rehearsing and performing, of meeting its public and catching up with its history.

The quartet members and their entourage of groupies -– the quartet consists of violinists David Perry and Suzanne Beia, violist Sally Chisholm, cellist Parry Karp plus manager Sarah Schaffer — spent time meeting and greeting the descendants of the original quartet members who started the ensemble over a century ago at the Royal Belgian Conservatory of Music in Brussels before it became a Court quartet and then World War II stranded the quartet in Madison.

That’s when, in 1941, the quartet became artists-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, where they have remained ever since.

Here are some updates on Day 2 of the Belgium tour:

Read on:

Sarah Schaffer writes:

Day 2 — Thursday:

Much calmer!

Today’s “crisis” is small compared to yesterday’s:

The quartet needed a place to rehearse.

We’d assumed, incorrectly it turned out, that the hotel would have something like a meeting room that might be used.

No luck.

They offered instead the BAR! It is not open mornings.

And that is where Michel Arthur Prevost (below left in my photo), the grandnephew of founding violist Germaine Prevost and the impresario of the opening concert at Flagey Hall, first encountered the quartet when he unexpectedly arrived at the hotel this morning. On the right is his brother Jean Marie Prevost.

Acoustics at Flagey were fantastic, as they quartet found out when rehearsing.

The opening concert was much enjoyed by a small but extremely appreciative audience.

Tomorrow we meet King Philippe’s counselor, Herbert Roisin, and offer him our gift of the photos of the old and current quartet members and a letter from our new University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank that we carried with us to Belgium.

Plus, the Pro Arte Quartet has received media attention, the local newspaper running a story (below) in French under a headline in English:

Adds violist Sally Chisholm, who always has an eye for the feature and the fun:

What a fine way to travel!

Here is a very professional taxi driver taking us to Flagey Hall.

Much acceleration, good humor and the local title of Place des Morts (Square of the Dead) for the number of pedestrians crossing the street.

We are now in Studio 1, safe and greeting the grandnephews of Germain Prevost and many Pro Arte friends.

Here is the grandson of cellist Robert Maas, speaking with Anne Van Malderen who is writing a documentary history of the Pro Arte. He speaks no English, but is very easy to understand!

And here is the great-granddaughter of Robert Maas:

What a wonderful hall and appreciative audience.

Here is the stage before I played the Elegy for solo viola that was composed by Igor Stravinsky for one Pro Arte member and dedicated to the passing of another, Germaine Prevost. I performed it after remarks, in French, by Dr. Prevost, grand-nephew of Germain Prevost.

And here is the brief review by Dr. Robert Graebner, a UW-Madison alumnus and retired Madison neurologist who, with his wife Linda Graebner, is following the Pro Arte on its one-week tour and who commissioned for the quartet’s centennial the String Quartet No. 6 by American composer John Harbison — who teaches at MIT and co-directs the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival near Madison each August, and who has won both the Pulitzer Prize and a coveted MacArthur “genius” grant:

We just returned from a private concert at the historic Art Deco Flagey Studio 1. (Below is a photo of the concert posters taken by Sarah Schaffer.)

The Pro Arte was in top form, and attendees included two relatives of Germaine Prevost and two relatives of Robert Maas.

Tomorrow brings a concert at the Royal Library.

So stayed tuned as the Pro Arte performs again (below is the printed program from Sarah Schaffer)  and meets The Royals – or at least their reps.

 

 

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Posted in Classical music
Tags: Arte, Arts, Belgium, Brussels, Cello, Chamber music, Classical music, computer, digital camera, Igor Stravinsky, IPad, iPhone, Jacob Stockinger, John Harbison, King, MacArthur Fellow, Madison, MIT, Music, Pro Arte Quartet, Pulitzer Prize, Rebecca Blank, royal, smart phone, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Viola, Violin, Wisconsin, World War II