At the urging of a search committee headed by Irma Vallecillo, NEC recruited Katz from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where he had taught cello and chamber music for five years after his 20 years at Eastman. As a condition of accepting the position at NEC, Katz asked the school to establish the Professional String Quartet Training Program. “There is no shortcut to becoming a great quartet,” says Katz. “You need time to coalesce technically, emotionally, and spiritually. That’s why we created a master of music program with a major in string quartet, open only to the group selected for the program. We can give them a couple of years to work together intensively instead of sending them out into the cold, cruel world. More than anything, I want to instill a sense of devotion to the art form—that is the real joy of a lifetime together as a quartet.”

Among the most difficult challenges for any group, says Katz, is refining intonation. “Intonation has everything to do with beautiful sound,” he says. “I like the way Atar Arad put it. He’d lift his arms, wiggle his fingers, and say, ‘When you’re part of a group playing a chord perfectly in tune, the overtones rise and rise until they are making love in the sky.’”

When asked what makes a good quartet player, Katz reveals his own active imagination. “I have this surreal image of an ideal string quartet comprising four bugs on the stage with huge ears and long antennae. The antennae zero in on each other and interact on a chemical level with what the other members are feeling and how they sound.”

About the tensions that inevitably arise between quartet members, Katz cautions, “The biggest poison is that little, secret thought one person can have that he’s better than another. You can have different strengths and weaknesses, but you must all know in your gut that you’re equals. You’ve chosen each other out of mutual respect. During a hot disagreement, say to yourself, this person I’m criticizing is an excellent musician.”

Although Katz often performs chamber music, until 2006 he had not played with all the original members of the Cleveland Quartet for 26 years. An opportunity arose that May when Peter Salaff traveled to Boston from Cleveland, where he teaches violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Both violinist Weilerstein and violist Strongin Katz live in the Boston area as members of the NEC faculty, so Paul suggested they all get together at his apartment for an afternoon of quartets.

“It was terribly emotional and wonderful for all of us,” Katz recalls. “It’s amusing how we were so nervous. We had not played a single note as a foursome since June 1980. I think none of us really thought after 26 years that it could be anything special, and we were afraid it would be disappointing. After all, we’ve evolved in different ways, and we assumed that incompatible change was inevitable.

“We started with the slow movement of Beethoven’s Op. 135. Talk about sonority! I immediately was pretty close to tears. Anyway, in my humble opinion, we sounded pretty amazing. I think we were all moved, and shocked, and we had a wonderful afternoon. We told each other that now that the ice was broken, we will do it again.”

Living the life, and helping others do the same, Katz continues to evolve as both creator and collaborator. “The Jupiter played an amazing concert,” he says of their year-end recital at NEC’s Jordan Hall. “Their Bartók Third was like a clinic in quartet playing. Certainly they did it, not me, but everything I believe in was there. They completely knocked me out.”

Looking for the unique, expressive voice in each student, and each ensemble, he often finds it. “When they all sound different,” he says, “I feel I’m doing something right.”


This is the first of a three article series on the challenges professional chamber players face making it in the modern marketplace.