Juilliard String Quartet Retired Violist 2013

World reknown string quartet ensemble, Juilliard String Quartet announced their retirement of violist Samuel Rhodes, to be happened on July 2013.

photo from JSQ's social network

The news:

After 44 seasons, violist Samuel Rhodes to retire from the Juilliard String Quartet in July 2013.  Roger Tapping joins the JSQ beginning September 2013.

From Samuel Rhodes’s farewell letter:   “My 44th season with the Juilliard String Quartet began one month ago to the inspiring sounds of late Beethoven and Elliott Carter ringing in the air.  As the echo   of these masterworks still resounds in my ears, it is with mixed feelings of great regret and joyous anticipation of the future that I am announcing to you that it will be my last season.  

Even though I am still in very good health and I sense that my playing skills are undiminished, I feel that I have reached a certain age where I must use what time I may have left for things other than the string quartet to which I have been so dedicated for so many years. It will be difficult to leave my three incomparable colleagues and the awe-inspiringly beautiful music that have been so much a part of my existence for so long, but I am sure that, at this time of my life, this is the right thing to do. I am grateful for the privilege I have had to rehearse, debate, recreate and perform the most profound, intimate and sometimes heaven-storming music of all the great composers of the past and of our own times on a daily basis. The constant interaction, musical and otherwise, with three sensitive and intelligent colleagues taking part in our own “quartet universe” is also something that I will miss. This truly must be the best “job” a musician and a violist can have!

The violist who has accepted my colleagues’ invitation to join them, Roger Tapping, has the artistry, experience and expertise to take part in carrying the quartet forward with the same spirit and ideals as it has had in the past. I am very proud to have him take over the viola position and wish him the best in his new life.”

Full story from Julliard news press

Violist Roger Tapping to Join the Juilliard String Quartet Beginning September 2013
JSQ Violist for 44 Seasons, Samuel Rhodes Continues Teaching and Remains Chairman of the Viola Department at Juilliard; Mr. Tapping Also Joins the Juilliard Faculty

Juilliard President Joseph W. Polisi announced today that violist Roger Tapping will join the Juilliard String Quartet beginning in September 2013. He also becomes a member of Juilliard’s viola faculty beginning with the fall 2013 semester. Mr. Tapping currently is a faculty member at New England Conservatory, and for a decade was a member of the Takács Quartet. Violist Samuel Rhodes, who has been a member of the Juilliard String Quartet since 1969, and a teacher at Juilliard, remains on the faculty at Juilliard as Chair of the Viola Department. He celebrates his 44th and farewell season with the Quartet – whose other members are violinists Joseph Lin and Ronald Copes, and cellist Joel Krosnick – performing with them throughout this season and into July, for their traditional Ravinia Festival appearance.

Full story here.

Violist Roger Tapping is Guest Artist With the Juilliard String Quartet on Alice Tully Hall Recital on Tuesday, February 26 at 8 PM

Program Features Samuel Rhodes' Viola Quintet; Mozart's Viola Quintet in D Major, K. 593; and Beethoven's Quartet in F Major, Op. 135

Violist Roger Tapping is guest artist with the Juilliard String Quartet in Samuel Rhodes’ Viola Quintet (1968) and Mozart’s Viola Quintet in D Major, K. 593 on their Alice Tully Hall recital, part of Juilliard’s Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series, on Tuesday, February 26 at 8 PM. The program opens with Beethoven’s Quartet in F Major, Op. 135.

Full story here.

Found out more about Juilliard String Quartet here.