Viola Search Spotlight: Gwen
Gwen Krosnick
What was your favorite thing about the viola search? One of my favorite parts was that I got to know my colleagues better over the course of the year. With this really patient, calm search that we had, the kind of rehearsing that Muneko and Jen and I did over the course of the season let us get deeper into our identity as a quartet, and what we want from someone who's going to come in and help us change that and shape it further. I felt like we got closer, and did really amazing work, just the three of us, over the search.
What was the most difficult part of the search? We were very committed to showing up, playing our best, and being ourselves – to really being present with each person who auditioned. And in the course of a season where we are also playing with a lot of viola subs, playing our concert season, doing our teaching, living our lives, it was a very intense and exhausting extra layer to add, even as valuable and inspiring as it was.
How was this different than other quartet auditions for you? This was my first time on this side of the search. I've auditioned for other quartets before, and my most recent audition was for the Cassatt Quartet – I was older and more mature coming into that audition. My main goal coming into that Cassatt Quartet audition was: show up and, of course, play your best, whatever, but show up as your whole self — don’t mute it. If you're too much for people, it's not comfortable for anyone. I've had a lot of situations where people thought I was too much or too intense! I thought: if I can show up and be really intense and be myself in this situation, then maybe this could be really good. I remember asking you guys in like some of Mozart 589 – “Okay, well, so – was that too much bass? And you were all like, “No, no! It's not too much!” And I was like, okay, interesting! Let's see where this goes.
So it was an interesting perspective to shift and do this for the first time on the other side of it. But I really did want that for someone else: someone who was going to show up with a very specific, fully formed identity of their own. It doesn't even matter what it was, but that they had a real point of view, a real voice, and the generosity and interest to share it with us; and to allow us to explore it with them. That's my favorite part of this quartet – that it's all intense people doing their own intense things, and we come together and explore that together. So I feel really excited that that's where we're ending up with someone who's coming in that vein.
What do you think the role of the viola is? I think the role of the viola is all about complexity. In a quartet we all do change roles. But there's rarely a time when the viola's presence isn't layering in to make something more complicated and more interesting than it would have been otherwise. As we were going into this search, I wanted us to find someone who had a real interest in that complexity, and an interest in leaning into that – whether it's in the bass sounds or high sounds that still sound like viola. This interesting, dark, sensuous, complex voice is one of the things that makes a quartet sound like a quartet. And I feel like I'm ending every line with this, but I just feel so excited that we're ending up with is someone who really embodies that amazing complexity and point of view in the voice.
What are you most looking forward to next season? I'm so excited for exploring and finding new sounds, new ideas, new approaches together in a larger sense. On a more specific level, the Shostakovich 14th Quartet that we're carrying next season was written for the cellist of the Beethoven Quartet. So the cello takes on this very dramatic solo role, and, as a result, the viola does all kinds of strange and wonderful things in response. I'm very excited to explore that with someone who is super passionate and excited about all of the interesting idiosyncrasies and peculiarities about all different quartet writing. On a personal level, we've ended up with someone who I had actually wanted to become friends with some time ago. So it feels really special and meaningful to me to look forward to slowly building with this person our point of view about all the different, complicated, interesting low-voice sounds; and then also to look forward to building a friendship together. I know that sounds really sappy, but…it’s nice.
What did you have for breakfast? A favorite Eric Kim recipe for the New York Times: eggs over rice with roasted seaweed – fried eggs, but while they're frying, you add soy sauce and sesame oil on top. And then you eat it with the seaweed crumbled into the rice. It's so good.
What's your go-to pick-me-up in mid-afternoon? It's always iced tea. If I have fallen off the wagon and I'm drinking more caffeine than I should be, it's black iced tea. If not, then I'll have an herbal iced tea.
