IOWA RESIDENCY

The Euclid Quartet's time in Sioux City has come to an end, but the effects of their efforts still live on: today, string programs are thriving in Sioux City, Iowa. However, the picture wasn't always so positive, and the Euclid Quartet played a major part in this revival. Elementary schools that once lacked any string students at all are now scrambling to find enough instruments for all the kids who want to learn to play the violin, viola, cello, or bass. A new music academy was dedicated to promote high-level music instruction, so that students would no longer have to leave town for string instruction at an advanced level. And the string department at Morningside College, all but officially dead a few years ago, grew large enough to sustain a string orchestra and attract some of the most talented students from the region.

Read on to learn about the Beginings of the residency, the Quartet's work in the Public Schools, and the string program at Morningside College.

Beginings

The Euclid Quartet began working in Sioux City with a three year residency, established through a partnership between the Sioux City Symphony and Morningside College. Educational work was a large and important component of the residency. The Symphony recognized a critical shortage of quality string instruction in the local schools and available privately in Sioux City. Several public schools had no string program at all, and the few existing teachers were stretched to their limits, having to split their time between too many schools. No teachers in Sioux City were capable of teaching the most advanced students, who had to travel elsewhere for private instruction at the highest level. Additionally, Morningside College once boasted a fine and well-respected music department with a healthy complement of string players, but due to changing priorities, the number of string students had in recent years declined to zero, and the string faculty consisted of one cello teacher. Morningside College partnered with the Symphony in setting up the string quartet residency with a view to rebuilding the string program at the college.

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The Public Schools

To assist the schools, each year the Euclid Quartet performed a series of "Informances" for third-graders at every elementary school in Sioux City.  These forty-five minute presentations introduced the students to string instruments in a humorous and friendly manner.  They displayed the differences between the instruments, their various possibilities, and most importantly conveyed how much fun can be had playing string instruments.  (Watch video clips by clicking here.)  As a follow-up to the Informance programs, the Euclid Quartet also offered a "Prelude" program giving every third-grader in the public schools a chance to try a violin and learn some basic open-string pieces.  Both programs were met with tremendous enthusiasm by students and teachers, and enrollment in the string classes at school steadily rose.  As a direct result, those schools which offered no string class were finally able to provide a program.  Every elementary school in Sioux City now has a string program and the school system even created an additional position for a string teacher to meet the increased demand.

The Euclid Quartet offered solo masterclasses and orchestra sectionals in the middle and high schools, and held audition workshops and clinics for those students taking All-State Orchestra auditions. With the help of the Euclid Quartet, the Sioux City Symphony was able to augment its Youth Orchestra Program with a newly-formed middle school-level orchestra. This "Philharmonia" orchestra provided a smooth and graded progression between the young, beginner-level "Symphonette" and the more advanced "Youth Symphony." For the first four years of this new cohesive three orchestra program, the members of the Euclid Quartet were the conductors of the Symphonette and Philharmonia orchestras. The quartet also offered sectionals for the Youth Symphony and held chamber music nights for the students.

As a result of their work in all these areas, many students wished to study privately with members of the Euclid Quartet. The numbers quickly grew to the point that the quartet felt that the private instruction they offered could be organized into a pre-college division at Morningside College. Therefore, at the quartet’s suggestion, the Symphony and Morningside College partnered to form the Leo Kucinski Academy of Music. This organization is able to offer students both need-based and talent-based scholarships, masterclasses, juries, and recitals, and has become the operating body of the Youth Orchestras program. Standards noticeably rose and many students were successful in gaining positions in the Iowa All-State Orchestra.

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Morningside College

In its tenure as resident string quartet at Morningside College, the Euclid Quartet revived a string program that had completely disappeared. Beginning with no string students at all, the members of the quartet worked as recruiters, private teachers, and ensemble coaches to build a viable string program which attracted some of the most-advanced students in the region, and sustained a unique faculty/student side-by-side chamber orchestra, the Morningside Camerata, that toured Ireland and England in the spring of 2007.

 
At Morningside College the Euclid Quartet taught instrumental lessons, chamber music, and string pedagogy, and also performed formal and informal concerts on campus. The group regularly made recruiting trips to high schools around Iowa and the neighboring states for Morningside College. The Euclid Quartet also instituted a chamber music seminar for high school students, in order to enhance their recruiting efforts by bringing students to the college campus. Held every spring from 2003 to 2007, this intensive long weekend in March was enormously successful both musically and in terms of recruitment: a large majority of the string students who enrolled at Morningside were participants in this seminar. Another successful recruiting tool was the Kucinski Academy of Music, which the quartet helped to found, and which serves as a feeder program for the college music department.

 
To raise the visibility and reputation of Morningside College, the Euclid Quartet also gave lectures for string teachers at the Iowa Music Educators Association annual convention in Ames. These lectures were enthusiastically received by the teachers and raised awareness and the profile of Morningside’s string program. With solid relations built with the major school orchestra teachers in the region, the reputation of the string program at Morningside grew rapidly. After an initial three-year residency partnership between the College and the Sioux City Symphony, Morningside College recognized the Euclid quartet’s contribution to the music department and created a new string quartet residency at the college (replacing the original partnership residency). With the quartet’s larger presence on campus, string students at Morningside had the opportunity to perform in a chamber orchestra, a full orchestra, and a semi-professional orchestra (Sioux City Symphony Orchestra), as well as chamber music and solo opportunities.

In the spring of 2006, the Euclid Quartet’s first string recruit graduated from Morningside and went on to pursue graduate violin studies at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, in the violin studio of Masao Kawasaki.

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