The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: A $5 million fund has been started to guarantee the future of the acclaimed Pro Arte String Quartet at the UW-Madison

By Jacob Stockinger

This past week, on Tuesday night, the critically acclaimed Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer), artists-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, performed its third concert of the semester.

This time it was a terrific program of music by Hugo Wolf, Dmitri Shostakovich and Antonin Dvorak. (You can hear the Pro Arte perform Ernest Bloch‘s Prelude in the YouTube video at the bottom. Plus, YouTube has many more samples of the Pro Arte Quartet.)

The string quartet, which celebrated its centennial five years ago, is the longest lived string quartet in history. It has been at the UW-Madison ever since it was exiled here 75 years ago while on tour during World War II. That is when Hitler and the Nazis invaded the quartet’s homeland of Belgium. (Below is the Pro Arte Quartet in 1940.)

Yet despite such a distinguished history, the existence of the Pro Arte Quartet has had some close calls before and has even been on the endangered species list, only to get a reprieve.

Now, given the current state of steep budget cuts and tenure reforms at the UW by Gov. Scott Walker, the Republican-dominated Legislature and the Board of Regents, there are concerns about what will happen in the near future, especially if one or more of the quartet members leaves or retires.

One ambitious solution is now under way.

A fund at the UW Foundation has been started to endow a chair at the School of Music for each member of the quartet in the strings department. Rebekah Sherman is the Foundation’s liaison to the project.

The proposal needs to raise $4 million with an additional $1 million for other activities such as touring, new commissions, research, outreach, student activities and recordings. (Below is the Pro Arte Quartet, which has always pioneered new music) in 1928.)

If you want to know more about the project, contact Robert Graebner at graebner@wisc.edu

The Ear will provide more information in the near future about how to join the project and receive updates as well as how to donate.

But at least now you know and can figure out how you can help if you want to help.