Introducing James Moat

Beginning May 16, 2012, Canadian violinist James Moat will join the Skyros Quartet. We are thrilled to have his talent join our ensemble as we head off to Lincoln, Nebraska. James and Justin met at Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario), where they studied violin together under Jerzy Kaplanek. After auditioning several candidates last fall, we invited James to become our new second violinist.

Recently employed as a section violinist with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, James Moat has also played regularly with the Kitchener/Waterloo, Sudbury, Ottawa, Kingston, Gatineau and National Academy orchestras. An avid traveler, James ventured overseas to pursue a Masters degree at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in Limerick, Ireland. The year provided James with several exciting opportunities, including performances abroad in Paris and Amsterdam, and a research trip to visit the home of Jean Sibelius in Finland.

Prior to receiving his Masters degree, James spent a year studying at the Interlochen Arts Academy under Paul Sonner, and he worked with Jerzy Kaplanek of the Penderecki String Quartet to earn his Bachelor of Music from Wilfrid Laurier University. James spent his summers partaking in various music festivals, including Casalmaggiore, Meadowmount, and International School for Musical Arts founded by Atis Bankas of the TSO. He also spent several summers playing with Boris Brott's National Academy Orchestra in Hamilton, Ontario. James is a native of Calgary, Alberta.

Explore UT

This Saturday was UT's annual open house, Explore UT. Kids of all ages come from all over Central Texas to for demonstrations, presentations, and activities from every department on campus. We were glad to represent the Butler School of Music at the Texas Memorial Museum in a "Music Expedition" through the museum. We gave a small presentation about every 25 minutes, playing Haydn and Vrebablov. It was a really fun event, with kids, families, and some of our students from String Project circulating through the audience. It was the first time any of us have performed in a room full of fossils and dinosaurs!

This photo was taken by Evan Leslie, the outreach coordinator at the BSoM. Many thanks to Evan for all that he does for everyone he does for our school!

Here are some more pictures that Evan took of the other performances at the museum on Saturday. 

Final Master's Recital

We'll be playing our final Master's recital this Friday evening. We've been working really hard preparing for this performance and we're looking forward to sharing our work. For those reading this in Austin, we'd be delighted to see you on Friday February 24th at 7:30pm in Jessen Auditorium (located in Homer Rainey Hall, the building directly east of the Harry Ransom Center). There is a parking garage a block south, as well as free parking on Guadalupe and the streets of West Campus after 6:00pm. We hope to see you there!

Spring 2012 - What we're up to

As the third week of the Spring semester begins, we'd like to share what we're up to as we finish up our degree at UT. Our main priority these days is preparing for our final Masters' recital and auditions for graduate quartet residencies! We're playing works by Haydn and Dvorak, as well as a few other shorter works, on February 24th in Jessen Auditorium. We hope you all can make it!

Academically, we're fully immersed in our quartet studies this semester; every class we're taking is directly related to string quartets! Here's what we're taking at the UT Butler School of Music:

• Weekly quartet coachings with Will Fedkenheuer of the Miro Quartet
• A seminar with John Largess of the Miro Quartet on the subject of preparing outreach performances
• An independent study with Prof. Sandy Yamamoto on the subject of preparing grants, press kits, and other business related functions
• Individual lessons with our respective teachers
• UT New Music Ensemble

In addition to our studies at school, we're still teaching at the UT String Project, where we maintain private studios and teach various classes (orchestra, group, and beginning music theory). We're also working in two area high schools with CHAMPS (Chamber Music in Public Schools), a local non-profit that provides free weekly coachings in public schools. Our student quartets from Anderson and Akins High Schools performed a few weeks ago at the CHAMPS Winter Recital. Just this last Saturday, the students from Akins performed their Mozart once more in a masterclass with Maestro Peter Bay, conductor of the Austin Symphony. We're very proud of all that our various students have accomplished!

CHAMPS Informance-November 6th, 2011

Austin is extremely lucky to have a program like CHAMPS (Chamber Music in Public Schools). This unique program offers free weekly chamber music coachings, and bi-annual concerts to thirteen public middle schools and high schools in the Austin area for free. We have been fortunate enough to coach for the CHAMPS program for the last two years. Working with our students at Anderson High School and Akins High School every week has been a pleasure and a very rewarding experience for us as coaches.

Last Sunday, we participated in an "informance" with Will Fedkenheuer of the Miro Quartet, Aiana String Quartet, our students at Akins High School, and students from Murchison Middle School. We had the opportunity to coach our string quartet from Akins High School, and then perform and receive a coaching from Will Fedkenheuer, all in front of an audience.

Here is a photo of us with our students from Akins High School after the performances:

From left to right: D'Auriel, Marina, Sarah, Justin, Alyssa, Jesus, Willie, and Jose
(thank you to Alyssa's mom for the photo!)


To learn more about the CHAMPS program, or the Salon Concert series, you can visit this website: http://salonconcerts.org/

Visiting East Austin College Prep Academy

One of the best parts of being in a quartet are the awesome opportunities we receive on a regular basis to outreach into the community. On October 27th, we had the pleasure of working with a group of students at the East Austin College Prep Academy. East Austin College Prep Academy is an innovative, tuition-free public school with the following vision:

"The vision of the East Austin College Prep Academy is to serve as a model school with a rigorous curriculum that successfully prepares all students, regardless of economic background, for graduation and success in college and career, while also instilling a commitment to community service."


We played Mozart String Quartet K. 421 for the students, and talked about playing stringed instruments, being in a string quartet, and Mozart's life. They are currently starting a string program at East Austin Prep Academy, but the new instruments have not arrived yet. In the meantime, the students, with the help of their teachers Patrick, Laura, and Liz, have created some awesome paper mache stringed instruments!

To learn more about the school, click the link below. Thanks to Patrick and Marina from Skyros for setting up this great outreach opportunity! We hope to see the students at East Austin Prep Academy again soon!

http://www.eastaustincollegeprep.org/schools/academy/about/message.html

To see more pictures of our visit, courtesy of Patrick, click this link to Austin Soundwaves' flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69558507@N03/sets/72157627957747039 

Skyros Quartet Enters the Blogosphere!!!

We (Sarah, Marina, Justin, and Willie) are excited to make our debut into the blogging world! Look out for new exciting posts in the near future!