Miro String Quartet brings touch of spontaneity to chamber music Prize-winning group displays eclectic style in concert at Minsky Hall

When the Miro String Quartet performed Sunday at Minsky Hall at the University of Maine, the group swept the audience into a whirlwind of chamber music. The four musicians – Daniel Ching and Sandy Yamamoto on violin, John Largess on viola and Joshua Gindele on cello – have been playing together for six years and have won several impressive prizes, including the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 2000. Still, they are young enough to look as if they might be hipster rock musicians rather than formidable classical music talents. But neither their talent nor their ability to rock was in question during performances of Mozart, Debussy and Dvorak. This is a chamber group that, like the Spanish painter whose name it bears, brings vibrancy and a diversity of influences to its art. After the afternoon concert, the players took time to share more about themselves with the audience, which is excerpted in the following interview. For a more complete, audio version, go to www.bangornews.com and click on the Back Talk icon.

Alicia Anstead: You talk about choosing the name Miro String Quartet as being last minute. Now that time has passed, what do you hope that name evokes for listeners?

Daniel Ching: Miro’s artwork is so eclectic. It’s not associated with one particular style. And that’s something, as a group, that we really like both about the name and about ourselves. We try to play everything – things written last year and things written 300, 400 years ago. We try to keep it mixed. We like the element of that that goes with the name Miro. He wasn’t part of any school. He kept bucking traditions. He liked to do very bright, colorful things and monochromatic sketches.

Anstead: Your style has been called spontaneous and refreshing. Where does style come from?

Gindele: It comes from discussion while we are rehearsing it. But we also have a belief that ensemble playing is much like a discussion and the discussion can veer off in a different direction depending on how somebody says something or how somebody intones their voice. A certain tone can get a reaction. Usually onstage, that’s what we do. We’re always waiting for somebody to throw us a curve, and we have to react. I think that’s where the spontaneous aspect comes from.

John Largess: You can’t tell yourself you’re being spontaneous. But the easiest way to do something that isn’t planned is to listen outside. We were trained by our teachers early on to listen to the quartet as if we were one of the audience members.

Anstead: You’ve spoken about the time, effort and education that has gone into creating you as musicians. When you have the good fortune and talent to arrive at a group such as yours, how do you continue to grow?

Sandy Yamamoto: I feel like we do grow every day and we are fortunate that we work with four very strong personalities. Every day, we are being criticized. Every day we are learning something new. That keeps us with an open mind and from ever thinking we’ve hit the limit. We are always trying to reach for something higher.

Anstead: In wartime, artists often feel a responsibility to address the issues at hand. Writers write. Poets compose poems. Choreographers choreograph. What do chamber music groups do?

Largess: The nice thing about music, and chamber music in particular, is that it is a great mirror for human experience and human dialogue from the past and also from the present. We tend not to be the kind of group that wants to make specifically political statements. But it’s not very difficult for us to find ways to play things that get people to think about what’s really going on inside of them or around them because, unfortunately or fortunately, human beings haven’t changed much in the last 15,000 years. The things they had to say in art 100 years ago, or 30 years ago, are just as relevant now and are perhaps more readily understood now. After Sept. 11, we were torn about programming. We wanted to give people a chance to grieve and identify, and on the other hand, we thought about program things that are hopeful and happy. There’s two sides to the coin. If the world is becoming a dark place, maybe the way to make it less dark is by bringing something that has light in it. Maybe it’s to allow people to bring something dark to hear and externalize these things. We did both.