- With my own group, with the Sequoia Quartet,
we were an outgrowth of my school, which was
the California Institute of the Arts.
It was brand new when I went there, young faculty,
and I began performing chamber music with the faculty
who were very much thinking along the lines
of the Marlborough Model where there were
the older musicians and the younger, all play together
and create music together rather than as one teacher telling
the young ones what to do.
And we had such a good time doing this that one
of the people said well let's, it was a string trio,
let's add a violinist and make a string quartet.
And that was how the Sequoia Quartet was born.
So I was extremely lucky.
It was one of the in the right place at the right time,
and I think I was proactive, as I'm urging you to be,
I was not shy to be there.
And low and behold, by the time I had graduated,
the Sequoia Quartet had been in existence two years already.
And we talked a friend into acting as our manager
and we talked to the school and could we use their name
in our publicity, and little by little things built.
And that was an option that we were able to play out,
thanks to some very good friends in our administration
and some clever thinking among my colleagues.