Quator Magenta might be performing a recital in Toronto on December 1. The quartet, primarily based in Paris, France, is bringing a blended program of up to date and conventional repertoire to the Kingston Street United Church as a part of the Kingston Street Village Music Sequence.
The musicians are Ida Derbesse (1st violin), Elena Watson-Perry (2nd violin), Claire Go-Lanneau (viola), and Fiona Robson (cello).
London, Ontario born and presently, Paris, France primarily based cellist Fiona Robson is a co-founder of Magenta. We spoke to her about her musical journey from London to Paris, and the music they’ll be bringing on tour.
Cellist Fiona Robson
“My very first instrument was the piano,” recollects Fiona Robson, cellist and co-founder of Quator Magenta. She remembers rising up surrounded by a musical household, the place most members performed the piano, and her sister performed the violin. “I wished to be her,” she laughs. It led to finding out violin as properly, however sooner or later, she got here throughout a child-sized cello, one among a number of that had been donated to a company domestically. She made the swap on the precocious reasoning that it is perhaps simpler to get work enjoying in an orchestra.
She started with personal research in London, the place she carried out as a soloist with the London Youth Orchestra, London Group Orchestra, and London Live performance Band. She adopted up with a Bachelor’s diploma from McGill College, the place she studied with famous cellist Matt Haimowitz, and carried out in his Grammy-nominated ensemble Uccello on a world tour.
Throughout her time at McGill, she was a founding member of the Lafontaine String Quartet. They might go on to win the 2018 McGill College chamber music competitors, and place as semi-finalists of the 2019 Fischoff Nationwide Chamber Music Competitors.
Through the summer time earlier than her closing yr of college, she crossed paths with somebody who talked up the concept of making use of to the Paris Conservatory, and he or she determined to make the leap. “I spoke some French already,” she says. It made Paris appear much less intimidating than Germay, Italy, or different European choices — a transfer throughout the Atlantic that had at all times been her dream.
“I did my Grasp’s from 2019 to 2021,” she says “They gave us an additional yr due to the massive COVID interruption.” Fiona accomplished her Grasp’s diploma in cello efficiency on the Conservatoire Nationwide Supérieur de Musique de Paris in 2022.
Quator Magenta was based throughout that second yr, simply after the top of the primary lockdown interval. The 4 musicians, whereas attending the identical college, hadn’t met beforehand.
“Our first violinist, she was trying round for folks to do a string quartet with,” Fiona says. Phrase of mouth led her to the chance.
“However, all of us had this dream, particularly after COVID. We have been feeling the necessity to play collectively […] lots.”
The Quator positioned as finalists within the Haydn Competitors in Vienna in March 2023, they usually have plans for extra competitions in 2025, together with a full schedule of concert events in France and elsewhere in Europe, together with a efficiency with Gautier Capuçon at his competition Un Été en France, and on the String Quartet Biennale on the Philharmonie de Paris, amongst others.
That’s on high of their graduate research with the Ébène Quartet in Munich.
Canadian Tour 2024
The present tour would be the first for Quator Magenta in Canada, however Robson herself has returned often to carry out, together with duet recitals and home concert events with pianist Raymond Truong, a connection she made whereas acting at ScotiaFest in Halifax.
“With him I’ve been nearly yearly doing little recital excursions in Canada,” she says. “We premiered this piece by Christopher Goddard written for us.” The work, as she describes it, was impressed by a portray by the composer’s nice uncle, Canadian painter Walter Tandy Murch. She’s hoping to present the work its European premiere this season with French pianist Elsa Bonnet, who’s a frequent collaborator. As a part of Duo Névé with Bonnet, Robson was invited to carry out on the Concours Worldwide de Musique de Chambre de Lyon in April 2022.
Fiona is a champion of up to date music, and commissioned an authentic piano discount for Philip Glass’ Cello Concerto No. 1, in 2018, together with Goddard’s piece, the four-movement suite Murch Research, in 2023.
For his or her Toronto live performance, Quator Magenta might be performing Haydn’s Emperor Quartet, Ligeti’s “Metamorphoses Nocturnes”, and Schumann’s String Quartet No.1, Op.41 No.1. It’s a program, as she describes it, “in fixed flux between dramatic darkness and pure musical sunshine”.
“The primary physique of this program, the 2 centre items are Ligeti’s […] and Schumann’s first string quartet.”
The quartet carried out the Ligeti Metamorphoses Nocturnes on the Haydn competitors. “We actually realized it and received deep into it,” she says. “It’s a very magical piece. It’s a loopy piece.” She cites the items vibrant colors and results. “There’s a lot humour in it too. I cherished studying it.” Fiona says that audiences find it irresistible again.
It’s the shock aspect within the programming. “They assume it’s the Haydn they’ll love,” Robson says. She’s seen first hand the best way audiences reply to Ligeti’s musical inventiveness. “It actually makes folks’s imaginations come to life.”
The Quator has been engaged on the Schumann quartet for this season as a live performance piece.
“We discover it pairs properly with the Ligeti,” she says, noting the juxtaposition of musical lightness and darkness in Schumann’s work. It’s a distinct sound world, one which leads you on an emotional curler coaster.
The addition of Haydn’s Emperor quartet is a nod to the historic custom. “We love Haydn as the bottom of string quartet enjoying,” Robson says. “It’s at all times a possibility to place as a lot persona into the work as doable. It’s a playground for us,” she provides. “The gradual motion of this piece is a particular one.”
The motion includes a theme and variations across the German nationwide anthem, in a type of historic echo of Ligeti’s very up to date remedy of theme and variations construction.
“They’re very, very totally different items, however there are little connecting threads that loop by it.”
Quatuor Magenta carry out the Allegro Molto Moderato from Henriëtte Bosmans’ Quatuor à cordes:
For audiences who see the Quator Magenta in Waterloo, the place audiences have heard the identical Ligeti work carried out by one other ensemble final season, this system will substitute a piece by Dutch composer Henriëtte Bosmans (a part of their emphasis on ladies composers). Bosmans (1895 to 1952) was influenced by Debussy and the Impressionists.
On a few of their dates, the Quator might be performing Yessori (Sound from the Previous) for String Quartet by Korean composer Soo Yeon Lyuh. It’s a chunk they realized to carry out at a string quartet competition in Paris at an occasion organized by Kronos Quartet, and a part of their 50 For the Future challenge selling and supporting new works.
Performing new repertoire, nonetheless, will be problematic, from discovering the scores and non-existent examples to work with, to promoting tickets. “It’s simply so intimidating. There’s loads of roadblocks to up to date music.”
That’s the place the Kronos challenge comes into the image. “The large shock is that I get a solo on the gong,” she laughs.
Robson is worked up to deliver her colleagues to her hometown and nation.
“They’re all actually trying ahead to it,” she says.
They’re hoping it’s just the start of many Canadian excursions.
- Discover out extra particulars about their dates in London, Kitchener Waterloo, and Toronto on December 1 (and the tour proceeds east to Montreal, Hinchinbrooke QC, and Halifax) [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.