New Strings

With its final position filled, the Harrington String Quartet looks forward to the 2011-2012 season

more resources

Photos: Click here to view photos.

Share This:

For the past 30 years, audiences have relished the musical treasure that is the Harrington String Quartet while listening to classical, romantic masterpieces from acclaimed composers such as Beethoven, Bartok and Mendelssohn. Founded through an endowment provided by the Don and Sybil Harrington Foundation, the region’s premier string ensemble has cultivated a loyal audience that spans across the United States.

“[Sybil Harrington’s] vision was that the Quartet would serve to fill many gaps in the community, first and foremost as a performing ensemble on their own, to be a nationally-recognized performing quartet,” says Sue White, who took on the position of executive director at the Amarillo Symphony in January. “If it weren’t for Mrs. Harrington, a lot of the arts community wouldn’t exist.”

The Harrington String Quartet performs concerts throughout the country and has worked with Albany Records Label and Composers Recording Industry. The recent collaboration with the Phoenix Chorale on its CD proves the Quartet is a respected name, Sue says.

“There are plenty of musicians that could play but they wanted the established Harrington String Quartet name,” she says of the Phoenix Chorale. “I think, among their peers nationwide, that [the Quartet] has really grown as an ensemble that folks want to hear and know what they’re doing… They are a sign of the ultimate quality that we have here in Amarillo. They’ve really become that symbol of excellence in what we all aspire to achieve.”

The group acts as a trifecta in which members not only perform with the Harrington String Quartet, but also serve as principals in the Amarillo Symphony and as assistant lecturers at West Texas A&M University, a combination that attracts a number of eager applicants from all over the world.

“We are looking for a very particular candidate because not every musician is a good teacher and not very musician is a good quartet player but when you find that, you have this great energy that forms a really quality ensemble,” Sue proclaims.

The musicians chosen for the Harrington String Quartet consider themselves more than fortunate to have been selected for such a prestigious and fulfilling position.

“To be a member of a string quartet that actually plays concerts, teaches with a university and plays with an orchestra is a very rare thing,” says cellist, Manny Lopez. “And to be a member of a community that is very supportive of what I do, that was quite attractive.”

Manny, a native of Santiago, Chile, and alumnus of The Juilliard School, immigrated to the U.S. 30 years ago to study under cello master, Aldo Parisot, at the Yale School of Music. He plays alongside Rossitza Jekova-Gova, Keith Redpath, and the most recent addition to the quartet, Vesselin Todorov.

Filling the violist position in January, Vesselin ended a 20-month search for the Harrington String Quartet and a four-year transitional stage. The departing of the ensemble’s violist and violinist in 2009 whittled the Quartet down to two members, Manny and Keith, making for a difficult period.

“It’s been very tough because we need each other to be able to survive,” Manny explains. “We need a stable string quartet to provide our audience and our students and our colleagues with quality and a commitment to this community. Having been in limbo for so long has been very tough on our ability to play together, to coexist consistently, and to make music, to be a quartet and do what a quartet does. We had to really, in a way, reinvent ourselves.”

While living in Boston and working with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut, Vesselin learned of the Quartet’s vacancy through Rossitza, a fellow Bulgarian and LSU graduate, and was instantly interested in the job. However, before and after the audition process, which required playing with the group and leading a class at WTAMU, Vesselin made sure not to get his hopes up about being hired.

“I honestly didn’t have any expectations at all because it was literally my very first experience with pressure like this,” says the LSU and Yale School of Music graduate. “I had never had auditions like that, involved with so many things at the same time... I didn’t know what to think because I was literally expecting actually quite negative results. The result came as a surprise to me at the end.”

Despite Vesselin’s doubts, Sue and the three members of the Harrington String Quartet quickly realized Vesselin was the missing thread.

“It was apparent from the very beginning, from the very start, that we wanted this guy,” Manny recalls. “He was really perfect for the position, his personality, his ability. Everything fit. To find a person who can fulfill the multi-faceted aspects of this job is a very difficult thing. We were lucky and blessed that we found Vesselin because he is the entire package and we just couldn’t be luckier.”

Vesselin perceived a coalescing of styles and personalities with his audition with the Quartet, a feeling that translated into their first public performance as a group in February at Westminster Presbyterian Church.

“It felt very nice,” says Vesselin. “The rest of the Quartet members are wonderful people to work with, easy to work with. I literally got the feeling that we were on the same page at some point… From the very beginning, from my experiences playing with other people, it’s not always as easy to click quickly with people from the beginning, and I didn’t have that feeling with the Harrington String Quartet.”

Like Vesselin, Rossitza, who became the concertmaster and violin one in 2010, also felt an immediate connection with the group.

“When I auditioned, I was deeply impressed by Keith’s and Manny’s musicianship,” Rossitza says via email during recent Europe travels. “I knew right away that this is not just any chamber group, but an ensemble where one can exchange ideas freely, work hard, grow and have fun.”

With Vesselin filling the final position, the ensemble and the Harrington String Quartet Coordinating Board felt more than a sense of harmony after seasons of fluctuation.

“It was like completing a family,” Sue compares. “The trick with having a quartet is it’s not just about finding the best performer and the best performer to play in the Symphony and the best person to teach at WT. When you have that performing ensemble, they really need to gel together as that family because they’re going to spend much more time together as that group of four than anything else. When they clicked, you could just see it in their eyes that there was this relief that they had found their sound and they had found their music-making companion.”

Not only was Vesselin drawn to the versatility of the job with the quartet, but he was also impressed with the value of the arts in Amarillo, he says.

“The local enthusiasm is really what strikes me the best because the people are actually eager to go and experience the arts in this area,” he exclaims. “From what I see in the Amarillo Symphony and the Harrington String Quartet, they have a really loyal audience. It seems like a privilege to all these people to go to a concert. It has great potential with lots of things happening and they seem to be developing for the better.”

The budding arts community also enticed the other members of the Quartet to relocate to a medium-sized city in West Texas. Marking its five-year anniversary in January, the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts is testament to the community’s commitment to developing the arts, Manny says.

“I’ve always called [Amarillo] an oasis of the arts in a somewhat isolated area,” he quietly laughs. “I think it is because people truly want quality. They want to see their community members be involved in the arts because it is a significant, an important part of life in this city.”

For violinist Keith Redpath, it was the passion for the arts, and Amarillo’s lack of traffic, that struck a chord with him.

“The type of enthusiasm for the arts has been a strong factor,” he says of remaining in Amarillo. “It’s really impressive we have the Symphony, Quartet, Ballet, Opera and Chamber Music series. When I first came here, I felt there was a real buzz and excitement for the Harrington String Quartet. There is definitely a strong group of supporters.”

Before moving to Amarillo eight years ago, the southern California-bred musician spent several years studying music and working with an array of musical companies across the country. Keith served four years as the principal second violin of the Wichita Symphony while earning his masters from Wichita State University. He continued to the University of Minnesota where he received his doctorate of musical arts and performed with the Minnesota Opera Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra.

An experienced concertmaster, having served in the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Rossitza appreciated the arts following in Amarillo.

“I had never before encountered such a supportive environment,” says the former University of Texas violin lecturer. “After a year, I’ve become accustomed to that support and attention, but I am not taking it for granted.”

As the longest-standing member of the Harrington String Quartet, Manny has witnessed the ensemble evolve and the arts community along with it.

“It’s a very different group than what I started with,” he describes. “In these 20 years, the Quartet has really adapted, had to adapt to the musical scene of the country and region and so forth. The thing that is probably most significant is the fact that the Quartet has become more involved and visible within the community of Amarillo.”

Before finding Vesselin, the three-member quartet had to perform for nearly a year with various ensembles and guest musicians to make up for its missing violist. However, the ensemble built upon that gap, preparing for the arrival of its final member.

“In retrospect, I think that it was a good thing that Keith, Manny and I got to know each other’s playing and work habits before adding the fourth person,” Rossitza says. “The three of us rehearsed daily. We dove into it so joyfully and vehemently, that we had to (and still have to) set an alarm clock to mark the end of our rehearsals. We lose track of time when we are together. That’s how much we like being a quartet.”

Making beautiful music is only a fraction of the Harrington String Quartet’s mission; education is also an important aspect of being a part of the ensemble. In addition to lecturing at WTAMU in their respected string categories, members of the group coach students of the Amarillo Youth Symphony Orchestra as well as teach private lessons. The Quartet travels to schools throughout Texas to inform and encourage young musicians to pursue their craft.

“We spend a lot of time not only rehearsing together regularly, but traveling and visiting schools and music programs. It’s especially becoming, in the last years, central to what we do,” Keith asserts.

The Harrington String Quartet will enter its 30th season this month and will make its first official performance October 28 at Westminster Presbyterian Church. The members of the ensemble all agree they look forward to exploring a different repertoire by incorporating challenging pieces they have been studying and rehearsing throughout the summer. And of course, they’re thrilled to finally be a full quartet again.

“We’ve been in transition for a long time now,” Keith says. “This is really a time of new beginnings and I have high hopes of what will happen.”

by Drew Belle Zerby

After graduating from LSU in 2009, Drew Belle worked as a page designer in north Louisiana until moving to Amarillo and joining AGN Media in late 2010. In her spare time, she loves to read, travel and spout out useless movie trivia.