You’ve got to do the work: The Miró Quartet marks its 30th-anniversary season

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It was in 1995, while they were students at Oberlin Conservatory, that violinist Daniel Ching and cellist Joshua Gindele first banded together to co-found the Miró Quartet. Fast forward three decades, and their drive to push themselves to new limits remains unwavering – whether playing Beethoven and other core repertoire or introducing their latest commission. They began winning first prizes at a string of major competitions, including the Banff International in 1998.

Violist John Largess has been with the this celebrated American quartet for most of its existence. He joined in 1997, as did Sandy Yamamoto as second violinist. William Fedkenheuer took Yamamoto’s place in 2011, when she withdrew to be able to spend more time with her young children. This remarkable level of stability has encouraged a consistency of values among the Miró, which has served as quartet-in-residence at the University of Texas in Austin since 2003.

On 19 December, the Miró Quartet continues the season-long celebration of its 30th anniversary with a signature programme at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, that combines quartets by Haydn and Beethoven with a work the American composer Caroline Shaw wrote for them in 2021.

It’s part of a packed season that includes performances across North America, collaborations with clarinettist David Shifrin (inspired by Benny Goodman’s appearances with the Budapest Quartet) and saxophone sensation Steven Banks, a focus on the overlooked quartets of Alberto Ginastera – and a bid to win their first Grammy Award, having been nominated for their 2024 album Home.

Joshua Gindele took some time out to talk about the ensemble’s roots, current priorities and the secret to its longevity.

What made you decide at such a young age to co-found a string quartet?

Joshua Gindele: At Oberlin, I needed to get credit for playing chamber music as part of my degree, so when Daniel asked me to play in a group, I was inspired – and maybe a bit intimidated – since he was an upperclassman and I was just a freshman at 18. He had already played in a bunch of different groups, and I think his dream was always to find a group with whom he could potentially have a career. 

At that point, I didn’t know that maybe that’s what I wanted to do. But I knew that I liked chamber music a lot more than I liked playing orchestrally. I just wanted to work hard, to sound good, to play some great repertoire – and, obviously, to get credit for the class.

It morphed into an obsession. We were rehearsing six, eight hours a day and began looking at competitions. We played to get as much feedback as we could. And here we are, 30 years later.

What’s behind the name? Caroline Shaw pays a kind of tribute to your namesake, Joan Miró, in Microfictions [Volume 1], the piece included on your Grammy-nominated album Home, which you’ve also chosen for the upcoming programme. She designed it as a set of six miniature musical stories inspired by the work of the great Spanish painter – as well as the short science fiction of T.R. Darling.

Joshua Gindele: That also goes back to Oberlin. When the professor in my art history class talked about Joan Miró’s idea of creation, it really registered and resonated with me. Miró thought that in order to be a great artist, you had to be able to imitate the masters of the past. You had to have their technique, their eye, their attention to detail – and you had to be able to execute. ‘But when I create my own art,’ he said, ‘I try to forget all of that and be as soulful and honest and personal as possible.’ 

And I thought: That’s exactly what we’re all striving to do as musicians. We have these great examples: amazing cellists, in my case, or string quartets that have existed for hundreds of years, and they set a standard that we have to uphold. It’s our duty to uphold that standard. At the same time, we don’t want to imitate them. We want to be ourselves. We want audiences to hear the amalgam of the four of our personalities when we perform. 

We want audiences to hear the amalgam of the four of our personalities when we perform

That’s what makes every quartet unique. That’s why there’s more than one and why audiences keep showing up to hear different groups play some of the same repertoire – because it always has a different life. The music becomes something new in new hands.

So in relation to Miró, it’s the idea of being soulful, being personal, being intimate with your music making, but still having that reverence for the great past that we have in the history of the string quartet and that performers of our individual instruments have created for us. it’s our job. It’s an honour. It’s also the reason we teach, because it’s our responsibility to pass on all the great lessons that all these people before us have given us.

How does Microfictions, the work you commissioned from Caroline Shaw, exemplify the Miró’s unique personality?

Joshua Gindele: Years ago, we worked with the Juilliard Quartet and were inspired by their commitment to new music. We’ve committed to a similar goal: having a piece written for us each year or two for the rest of our career. 

Caroline’s piece represents some of our ideals as a quartet: working with composers who are our friends and colleagues, bringing new works to life – not just premiering them once but committing to giving them a chance to be heard by the world. When we perform it, we recite each microfiction that she wrote for each movement as well. The art involves not just her beautiful composition for string quartet but her beautifully composed writing. We’ve been playing Microfictions for three or four years now. People just keep wanting to hear it. I love that.

How did it end up on your Home album? What’s the relation to the title work by Kevin Puts – your third commission from him – which was inspired by the plight of Syrian refugees fleeing to Europe?

Joshua Gindele: The idea for the album Home came out of the pandemic. Kevin’s piece [composed in 2019] was called Home before we even knew what a pandemic was. And then our relationship to home changed very dramatically for everybody. It became a place of safety, a place of solace, a place where we reconnected with our families. Caroline wrote her work while she was shut in her apartment in New York City.

I listen to that album and think about how much closer I am with my children than I was before the pandemic, as a touring musician. I got two years that I wouldn’t give back for a million concerts. Home feels to me like a snapshot of a memory that brings me so much joy. 

What’s the significance of Beethoven’s op.131 Quartet for your anniversary programme at the Kennedy Center?

Joshua Gindele: There’s been a connection between the Miró Quartet and Beethoven since we released our complete cycle on Pentatone [in 2019]. Beethoven considered op.131 to be his greatest accomplishment, and when we’re thinking about having reverence for the past, that makes it even more important for us as performers. Of course, these works have been performed so many times by so many unbelievably inspired, brilliant, creative quartets: that also puts added pressure on us to make sure we’re always doing it as well as we possibly can.

You’ve got to show up every day, and you’ve got to do the work

Any words of advice about your longevity – especially for young players?

Joshua Gindele: I love this question, because it brings out the professor in me. Two things. The first one is that you have to take care of your personal relationships first before you can play well together. We are only as happy as our least-happy member, and we’re only as healthy as our personal relationships are. So we have a lot of conversations about what people need, creating space for them to be parents, to have interests, to find a life outside the quartet. Without balance and without healthy interpersonal relationships, you see quartets fall apart all the time. 

The second piece of advice: No matter how easy it might seem to stop rehearsing – especially after playing together for 30 years – you’ve got to show up every day, and you’ve got to do the work. When we’re at home, we show up Monday through Friday for three or four hours every day to have conversations about our business and to learn new repertoire. 

I learned this from the Vermeer Quartet, because I heard them play concerts late in their career, and they sounded so incredibly good. When I asked how they do this, they said: We rehearse every day. So we’re really committed to that. It might be showing up even for just 45 minutes, playing some notes together, even if we can’t squeeze in a full rehearsal. Like getting fit, showing up and doing a little every day is so much better than the alternative.