Daedalus Quartet flies into Skinner

In Greek mythology, Daedalus (pronounced ded-a-lus) was a skillful architect who escaped imprisonment by constructing wings of feathers and wax and then flew away. The Daedalus Quartet will bring the same spirit of innovation and creativity when they perform on Tuesday, Feb. 20 at 8 p.m. in the Martel Recital Hall in Skinner Hall.

The diverse group is made up of siblings Min-Young Kim and Kyu-Young Kim on violin, Jessica Thompson on viola and Raman Ramakrishnan on cello. The group founded their quartet 10 years ago, and have since won several awards and served residencies at Columbia University and University of Pennsylvania. This past September, New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn praised the quartet's "polished and vigorous" musicianship, "imaginative phrasing and dynamics" and "riveting focus."

On Tuesday night, the four gifted musicians will perform three extensive pieces beginning with Mozart's "String Quartet, K. 589." In their past program notes, the Daedalus Quartet has written that the famed composer "makes the phrases sparkle" in this arrangement. Second will be "Night Fields" by Joan Tower, a Grammy-winning musician and Hudson Valley resident. In a note accompanying the pieces score, Tower describes the imagery the music is meant to conjure: "a cold windy night in a wheat field lit up by a bright full moon where waves of fast-moving colors ripple over the field, occasionally settling on a patch of gold." The ensemble will finish with Beethoven's revolutionary "String Quartet, Op. 131," a challenging, intricate, and relentless opus.

String quartets are among the oldest types of chamber ensembles in classical music. Thompson, who was last to join the Daedalus Quartet, explained that quartets replicate singing. "I think string instruments are the most similar to the human voice," she said. "The string quartet really covers the range of voices from bass to soprano."

Thompson attended the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pa. and has played violin since she was six. She admitted, "My best friend was taking lessons, and I wanted to do whatever she did!" She took up the viola a few years later, and eventually she realized she wanted to perform music for the rest of her life. "I think I decided I wanted to try and pursue it as a career when I was in high school after going to some great summer music festivals and getting to really immerse myself in music," Thompson recalled.

Intense immersion in music is exactly what Thompson got when she joined the Daedalus Quartet. The dedicated ensemble rehearses together "four or five days a week, for four to five hours a day." Thompson adores all of the songs in the quartet's repertoire, which encompasses classical as well as modern arrangement, but her favorites are those by Beethoven. She explained, "[They] are some of the most amazing [pieces of] music ever written. It's such an incredible experience to play them—there's something so human about them." Thompson said that during a performance, the Quartet members' favorite moments involve when they play off each other's dynamics. She said their most successful concerts are "when we feel like we're really in the moment and able to be spontaneous and respond to whatever the others are doing."

With successful ensembles such as the Vitamin String Quartet covering everyone from Ke$ha to The Cure, String quartets and classical music have regained pop culture prominence recently. However, bona fide classical music is certainly not the most common genre on modern college students' iPods. Thompson thinks that this lack of mainstream popularity is a shame. "People hear the term ‘classical music' and think of some stodgy music written a long time ago that's not really relevant anymore," she laments. "In truth, there's such a huge range of what could broadly be called ‘classical' music from pieces written hundreds of years ago to pieces written yesterday for all different types and combinations of instruments and voices, in all sorts of styles. There's so much wonderful music to discover, and it's possible to come back to the same pieces again and again and always hear something new."

So, if a modern college student and classical music amateur decide to give the genre a try by attending the Daedalus Quartet's performance, what should he or she do? Thompson brushed away the idea of an appropriate way to attend a recital. "There's no ‘right' way to listen to a concert. You can listen in order to understand the structure of the music; you can close your eyes and let your imagination go…I often like to watch and listen to the interactions between the players, to try and understand the conversation they're having through the music."