Meet the Callisto Quartet

October 5th, 2018

Fresh from their Grand Prize-winning performance at the 2018 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the Callisto Quartet debuts at Nichols Concert Hall with a program featuring Schubert’s String Quartet in C Minor, D 703; Bartók’s String Quartet No. 6; and Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 59, No. 2. Callisto also performs the Chicago premiere of Cantos by one of Spain’s most prestigious young composers, Francisco Coll. Formed in 2016 at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), Callisto was a prize winner at the 2018 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition and was the only American quartet selected to compete in the 2018 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, winning third prize in the Grand Finals.

MIC President and CIM alumnus spoke with the Callisto Quartet about their experiences as an award-winning chamber ensemble.

Paul Aguilar and Rachel Stenzel, violin
Eva Kennedy, viola | Hannah Moses, cello

Where and with whom do each of you study?
Rachel: We will all graduate from the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) with our individual degrees in May 2019. I am finishing my master’s degree and study privately with Stephen Rose and Jan Mark Sloman. Paul is finishing his bachelor’s degree and studies with Jaime Laredo and Jan Mark Sloman. Eva is finishing her master’s degree and studies with Lynne Ramsey. Hannah is finishing an artist diploma and studies with Melissa Kraut.

How did the Quartet meet?
Hannah: CIM is a fairly small school, so we all knew of each other even before we officially met. After playing together in various combinations and ad hoc ensembles, we all had a great deal of mutual respect for each other’s playing and knew that we all wanted to be serious about chamber music, so we decided to form a quartet. Very early on we knew the chemistry we found together was something special, and we haven’t looked back since!

Who are your primary chamber music mentors?
Eva: Our primary mentors have included Si-Yan Li, Peter Salaff, Gerhard Schulz, and members of the Brentano, Cavani, and Emerson quartets. We feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to work with some of our ultimate chamber music idols!

You won the Grand Prize at the 2018 Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition. How was that experience?
Rachel: This was truly a surreal experience for all of us. We had all participated in the Fischoff Competition many times before in both the junior and senior divisions - in fact, if you add up the number of years we have all individually competed at Fischoff, it has been a total of 17 years! I was fortunate enough to have won the junior division of the Fischoff Competition in 2014, so coming back this year in the senior division and winning the Gold Medal and Grand Prize was something I had dreamed of doing many times, but it was also a dream that I never thought would be realized.

What stimulates you about playing chamber music?
Paul: I absolutely love the repertoire that we get to study and perform in the quartet (and collaborations outside the quartet)! The pieces we get to live with every day are some of the most beautiful, emotional, intricate, and rewarding creations ever, and to be able to study them is a true privilege. Being able to work on this music with incredibly brilliant and talented friends is also something that I cherish and am so grateful for! Finally, sharing this amazing music, that we recreate in the moment together, with wonderful audiences is a very special experience that is unique and precious.

How do you manage the interpersonal dynamics of being together so much as part of a Quartet?
Hannah: It definitely is not always easy spending so much time together, especially on long road trips or when sharing a living space. Communication is key in any relationship, and quartet is no different. We try to be honest with each other about how we are feeling, work things out as much as possible, and then in the end let go of things as much as we can. While sometimes we do need space from each other, I think more commonly there have been times when we have left the a long rehearsal day feeling frustrated and tense and gone to dinner together immediately after to leave our frustrations behind and have a good time - quality time together away from our instruments can actually be therapeutic for us. If we held on to everything that annoyed us about the other three, we would never be able to play together.

What do you hope to be doing in five years?
Rachel: I think if there is one thing that we all know we want to be doing in five years, it is playing string quartets together. We are in the process of applying to graduate string quartet residency programs at different schools right now, and after we graduate from CIM in May we hope to enroll in one of these two-year programs. At the same time we hope to continue performing as much as possible all around the country and all over the world, while constantly expanding our connections and performance opportunities which will open the doors for us to share our music in new places and with many more people.

What is your most harrowing moment in a performance?
Eva: I can easily pinpoint our most harrowing performance experience! It was during our first recital in the first round of the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition last July. We were feeling the pressure to perform well but were feeling pretty good because we were playing Bartok’s 6th quartet, a piece we know very well. But halfway through the exceedingly difficult second movement, my D string peg slipped and the string went completely limp, completely unplayable. All thoughts of intonation, balance, articulation, and a hundred other details we’d worked so hard on went out the window as I simply tried to hang on until the end of the movement, playing my part on other strings with improvised fingerings, dropping all my double stops, and leaving some parts out completely. I was so relieved when we got to the end of the movement and I could tune my string, but two lines into the third movement it slipped again, down a half step this time, so I spent the rest of the third movement (also quite difficult) just trying to put my fingers a half step higher on the D string only. It was incredibly distracting and distressing to me and to everyone else, especially in such a high stakes performance, and I have to admit we all left the stage feeling pretty horrible. We figured we had no choice but to knock it out of the park at our second recital to make up for the problems in the first, but horribly, Paul got the stomach flu the night before we played--just our luck! He didn’t sleep a wink but somehow made it through the performance without throwing up on stage despite feeling awful. The only reason we can look back at the whole situation and laugh now is because luckily we advanced and ended up winning Third Prize in the competition!

What is your most cherished experience with the Quartet?
Paul: There are so many, it’s hard to choose! Of course, winning the Fischoff Competition was incredibly special for all of us, but I can also think of a few different recitals that I’ll always remember for the special moments we shared together and with the audience. Also, sometimes, just being in rehearsal at different times where we’re really making progress and working to create something we’re all proud of and believe in has to be right up there with the best experiences together!