Rice students, faculty participate in chamber music exchange in Leipzig, Germany

A group of students and faculty members from Rice’s Shepherd School of Music participated in a chamber music exchange with the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (HMT) in Leipzig, Germany, May 16-28.

The trip marked the first official visit of its kind for the Shepherd School students and faculty, who visited HMT for a series of performances and master classes as a part of the larger sister-city relationship between Houston and Leipzig.

Norman Fischer, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Cello, and his wife, Jeanne Kierman Fischer, artist teacher of piano, first explored the idea of a chamber music exchange during a 2013 visit to Leipzig to learn more about its musical scene and visit the HMT. Robert Ehrlich, rector of the HMT, also visited with Shepherd School Dean Robert Yekovich in 2013 to discuss the possibility of collaborating.

Norman Fischer said that Leipzig was chosen for the exchange because it is “huge” in terms of the history of music.

“In addition to Johann Sebastian Bach spending the last 23 years of his life there, the composers Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Edvard Grieg and Hanns Eisler spent a great deal of time there, and Richard Wagner was actually born there,” he said. “And George Frideric Handel was born and raised in Halle, the next town. German poet Friedrich Schiller wrote the poem ‘Ode to Joy’ in Leipzig, which became the basis for the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Finally, Leipzig was the center of music publishing, with many important music houses headquartered there.”

Norman Fischer and Yekovich agreed that the exchange should focus on chamber music, which was determined to be a good fit for Leipzig’s musical scene and the students who would be participating.

“Chamber music crosses departments and makes it easier for students to collaborate,” Fischer said. “It’s easy for the students to make music together.”

During the visit, the Fischers offered master classes with cellists, pianists and chamber music ensembles in addition to performing a recital of musical selections by Beethoven, Rochberg and Brahms. Shepherd School students Boson Mo (violin), Jarita Ng (viola), Clare Monfredo (cello) and Yvonne Chen (piano) offered three performances of the piano quartets of American composers Aaron Copland and Stephen Hartke at the HMT, at a local music foundation and at famed composer Felix Mendelssohn’s home.

“The preparation of the music and the process of delivering was inspiring,” Ng said. “Mr. Fischer recommended this all-American contemporary program, and it took much time and searching in order for the four of us to truly understand the pieces. It was slightly scary for me to introduce American music to the audience in Leipzig, because as much as every classical musician around the world plays German music, not a lot of people outside of the U.S. play American music.”

Ng said that Mo took time before each performance to provide some explanation of the music, which helped the audience understand the big picture of the pieces.

Fischer said that all of the performances were extremely well-attended and well-received by the German audience.

“German students tend to study more conservative types of music, so we wanted them to hear these fabulous contemporary American pieces,” Fischer said. “It was really exciting to see their positive reactions.”

The students also joined their Leipzig counterparts in the Brahms Sextet in B-Flat Major, Op. 18, and were coached by Frank Reinecke, second violinist with the Vogler String Quartet, who serves as director of chamber music at the HMT.

“We were able to experience firsthand what it would be like to be a touring music ensemble,” Chen said. “While the four of us had spent many hours together preparing all semester for our three concerts to perform in Leipzig, it was an incredible experience to perform the same few pieces in different settings and audiences. It gave us the freedom to truly get out of the score and present the emotion and beauty behind the notation to audiences who had mostly never heard any of the pieces before.”
The group took time to enjoy Leipzig’s rich musical history and visited the city’s many musical landmarks, including J.S. Bach’s house and museum, the Thomaskirche (a Lutheran church where Bach is buried), the houses of Schumann, Mendelssohn and Grieg and the birthplace of Wagner.

The intangible benefits of being in the city and experiencing its history and culture as well as the way people appreciate music was an important experience, Fischer said. He added that the overall experience was extremely provocative in helping the students develop as well-rounded musicians.

“In every country, there is a way people think about music that they take for granted; it’s just the way that they do it,” Fischer said. “It’s part of the common music heritage, and it’s how people think about music – kind of like a musical ‘accent’ – more complicated, but the same idea. It’s not something you can always quantify, but the Shepherd School students working with the German students was really helpful in broadening musical perspectives and ways of thinking.”

Ng said that the exchange was an entirely different experience.

“We were in their school for a week, worked together with their students and actually had the chance to see how different it is in a conservatory in Germany than in the U.S.,” she said. “The system is different, the style is different, audition, lesson, repertoire, etc. Some were things I expected to be different, some not. I do not think either one is better than the other; they are both great, just different.”

“I felt that while music is such a universal language, especially amongst the classically trained, it’s amazing how the difference in cultures impacts our approaches to music,” Chen said. “To have a glimpse of their perspective, studying on the grounds of Leipzig’s musically rich history, made a huge impact on me.”

Fischer said he selected the students for the exchange that he knew would get the most out of it.

“Three of the students are taking German and inclined toward it linguistically, and all of them temperamentally,” he said.

Fischer said that they are excited to welcome their student and faculty counterparts from Leipzig to visit the Shepherd School in late September and early October to celebrate 1,000 years since the signing of the city charter of Leipzig in 1015. Six students from the HMT will accompany HMT faculty cellist Peter Bruns and his colleague, pianist Gerald Fauth, on their Houston trip. The large collaborative work during the visit will include four students from Rice and four from the HMT in Leipzig performing Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat Major, Op. 20. A recital featuring Bruns and Fauth will be held Sept. 29 in Duncan Recital Hall, and the students will perform the Mendelssohn octet Oct. 3.

Chen called the trip unique and invaluable.

“To have had the faith and trust of Rice and our mentors to represent not only the school, but American music in general, was a great honor,” Chen said.