As this year winds down, we look back with astonishment at what the world has just been through. Like many, 2020 has caused us to sit back and reflect on everything that has happened.
Once the pandemic broke in March, like many artists and musicians around the world, we faced cancellations of our concerts, joined by an almost existential reckoning in the music industry. To keep our creativity going, Tamaki and Carmen embarked on an intimate online series called #TogetherInIsolation, which you can find on the Villiers Youtube channel. String duets by Bach & Bartok provided an uplifting way to still do chamber music together, even when separated.
This year, after a very deliberate search, we were fortunate to have a new first violinist, Katie Stillman, join our ranks. Katie has brought an immeasurable amount of energy, positivity, and light to the Villiers Quartet, and we were glad to share news of her arrival with her interview on our new #VQ Chat webcast, which also features on YouTube. As the year unfolded, we all found ourselves learning about tech and digital programmes at lightspeed. Apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Canva, GarageBand, LogicPro, WeVideo and YouTube quickly became a part of our lexicon, all in the name of changing the game for the “new different” that we were about to embark on as a quartet. In the year 2020, becoming quick and nimble to generate creative projects in this new era became our focus.
In June, thanks to the Arts Council Emergency Fund, we were fortunate to receive a grant to support our #VQCreate composition project for young composers. Borne out of our previous relationships with the Nottingham Music Hub and Nottingham University, we reached out to teenagers and secondary school students in the East Midlands to create our first online string quartet composition course. This was a groundbreaking moment for the Villiers – like all other organisations and ensembles, we were restricted from performing and teaching live in the pandemic. We had to migrate many of our activities online, and #VQCreate kickstarted our move to thinking how we could adapt. From July to November, we worked with 14 students across the East Midlands. These teenagers joined the course when schools were shut down, and they learned how to express their creativity during those isolated months by writing new quartets for us. After working with them via Microsoft Teams, and with the help of Dr Elizabeth Kelly from the University of Nottingham, the project culminated in an exciting online finale where we watched their performances online (which we had pre-recorded at the Djanogly Hall), joined by their families, teachers, and friends. It was a real highlight seeing the reactions of the students as they saw their music being performed. Some of these pieces were featured in the NottNOISE online music festival at Lakeside Arts, you can view the performances here.
Continuing in the new mindset of delivering musical activities in the pandemic, we also initiated the #VQ Discovery online strung quartet course, reaching out to amateur players and students in lockdown. This course was designed to give in-depth study to Beethoven’s string quartets – and especially to pay homage to Beethoven in this 250th Anniversary Year. We ran the whole course on Zoom and looked deeply into Beethoven’s quartets Op. 18 and Op. 59/3 with our enthusiastic students. It created a special sense of community and reverence for these works, and it was also enlightening within the Villiers as we discussed the historical, musical, and technical aspects of the works with the course members. Guest speakers Robin Ireland of the Lindsay Quartet, and Dr Owen Cox from Chetham’s School of Music joined us to give amazing talks about Beethoven. And the final highlight was a live online play-along with our students – we became very good at learning how to Livestream and record! We wonder what Beethoven would have thought if he knew a quartet was teaching his works over the internet in the 21st Century!
In October 2020, we had the pleasure of giving our first ever ‘online world premiere’ performing the complete 1889 Delius String Quartet. Only the final two movements of the quartet were known to be in existence, but last year the first two missing movements were acquired by the Delius Trust. With the help of Prof. Dan Grimley at the University of Oxford, these movements were realised, and we were able to give the first full performance for the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. Once again, our passion for connecting scholarship and performance resulted in a wonderful collaboration with Oxford, continuing our exploration of British music. Our Delius performance can be seen here, with great introductions by Dan Grimley and Joanna Bullivant at Oxford University.
Finally, our vision of bringing more music online has brought us to reflect on what it means to be a British string quartet, especially in these times. Questions of identity and the future of chamber music have become very cogent for us as we look at what life in the UK is like today. Our experiences of being in lockdown and at home are reflected in our new commissioning project, #VQ Commissions: From Home. We’re reaching out to 6 UK-based composers who will write 6 short quartets for us, which we will then record and perform online. Their new voices will continue telling the story of British chamber music. We hope you can support us in this project, as we look at 2021 and reveal more about this project. Please consider donating here.
We will have some big news for you in 2021, and we continue our journeys together to “believe in the art of string quartet”.
The Villiers Quartet
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