Surrealist sound Youthful Miro String Quartet stretches to reach all ages

Joshua Gindele, who is a cellist, was doing stretches on the floor of his hotel room in Buffalo, N.Y. The gym was closed and it was too cold outside to go running. But he was determined to get the exercise.

“I wouldn’t go mountain climbing the day before a concert, but I find I need to be very conscious of my flexibility,” said Gindele. “Musicians don’t generally think of that. But I’m a stretcher.”

It’s an apt description of Gindele musically, too. As one of the founding members of the Miro String Quartet, which will perform Sunday at Minsky Recital Hall at the University of Maine in Orono, Gindele has learned that flexibility is one of the key elements to a finely tuned chamber ensemble. The four musicians spend hours together practicing and weeks together touring. They have to know when to shine as soloists and when to play supporting roles.

“It’s about understanding what your roles are and how you fit in and what you have to do at any given moment,” said Gindele, whose musical alertness is likely bolstered by his experience as a tennis player and mountain biker. “The roles bounce back and forth so quickly and as long as you know what your roles are, it can work.”

The Miro Quartet was formed to fulfill an academic requirement at Oberlin College in 1995. After the project was completed, two of the players – Gindele and violinist Daniel Ching – wanted to stay together, and the Miro was born.

The name Miro comes from the surrealist Spanish painter Joan Miro, but was chosen less intentionally than serendipitously. At a competition, the group needed a name to fill in on an application, and because Gindele had been looking at Miro prints, one of the players suggested it as a name. It had the right associations and sophistication while still suggesting bold colors and spontaneity.

In 1998, the Miro won first prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, an event that buttressed the players’ confidence, and, two years later, the group received the Naumburg Foundation Chamber Music Award. In the last five years, the Miro has been praised by reviewers for its focus and intensity, its youthful vigor and luminous sound.

“Our aim is for something warm, something that will envelop the listener,” said Gindele, who started playing music at age 3. “We aim toward an older sound – not ‘older human being’ but old as in the 1930s and ’40s. We tend to have more of an expressive side than other groups.”

But age, of course, is an issue for a group that is primarily in its 20s playing to an audience that is typically twice or more that age.

“We try not to be overly mature,” said Gindele. “That goes against what a young quartet is about. There are definitely parameters we have to work around professionally. But we are constantly trying to explore ways to stay in those parameters and still keep it fun for us. All young musicians struggle with maturity versus youth. I generally think that young classical musicians are very hip and very intelligent people. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be doing what they are doing.”

To this end, the Miro, which is currently the resident quartet at Kent State University in Ohio, is planning to do a chamber music tour of bars this year with Matt Haimowitz, a Juilliard-trained cellist whose hit classical concerts in bars, taverns and clubs have been well-publicized.

Gindele hopes that the contact with listeners who may not be disposed to sitting in a formal concert hall will accomplish the same goal as at the more highbrow venues.

“We have a theory that the audience completes the group,” said Gindele. “We sit in a semicircle and the audience closes the circle.”

It’s not a stretch to think that the Miro, whether at a bar or at Minsky Hall, is a group to keep an eye on.

The Maine Center for the Arts will present the Miro String Quartet at 3 p.m. March 23 at Minsky Recital Hall at the University of Maine. For tickets, call 581-1755.