2022 Arts Award: the Vandy Quartet

by Sindey Amar ‘24

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Debbie Hsiao (violin), Kristen Lee (violin), Charlotte White (viola), Bethany Davis (cello), & Rachel Ruggera (cello)

Class of 2023

To start, tell us a little bit about yourselves!

Bethany: I'm a junior. I'm majoring in Marketing and Accounting. I'm from Meelbourn, FL. A little bit about my music background, I've been playing cello since the 5th grade, so about 7 years. I also play the piano. Two things I really enjoy doing.

Kristen: I play violin. Debbie and I switch off who's playing 1st or 2nd violin. I'm a junior majoring in Communication and Music. I'm from Rochester, MN. I actually started playing piano before I started violin. I began when I was 5, in Kindergarten, and I did a lot more with that when I was younger than I did violin, I would say. Now that I'm in college, it's a lot more fun to play violin with a group. I started playing violin in 4th grade and mostly played with orchestras and chamber groups rather than solo.

Charlotte: I'm a junior majoring in English and minoring in Chinese and Environmental Studies. I'm from basically outside of Los Angeles, the city in California. I originally started playing violin in 3rd grade. Then in high school, our orchestra did not have a violist, so the orchestra teacher just said "Can you play?", and I said "I don't really want to," and he said "Well, can you do it?", and I said "Ok fine," so I did, and I found that I liked the viola parts a lot better. I really liked the sound of the cello, but I can't play the cello [because it has] a different type of positioning, but I liked the deep sound, so in college I decided to continue with the viola instead of the violin. Then I met these guys from the orchestra, and we decided to make [the Vandy Quartet] together. It's been really fun, and I ended up living with some of them too.

Debbie: I'm majoring in Elementary Education and Applied Psychology. I play the violin, and I've been playing since I was 13. Before that, I also played piano. Like Kristen, I've also been playing violin more in college. I really like it because you can play with other people, and I think I much prefer that to playing alone on a piano.

Is there a piece of music or a musical experience that inspired you to get involved with music more seriously?

Kristen: I think for me, it's not a specific piece, but growing up, I did a lot of piano competitions just because my parents put me in that, and I think that gave me a lot of drive to practice and expand my repertoire; that got me a lot more not even into playing music, but just to listening to classical music. I think—translating that to violin—it's really fun to play pieces I've already heard. We have the freedom to just choose whatever pieces we want to play [in the Vandy Quartet], which is really fun because we'll say "Oh, we want to play this from this movie," something really fun, or different quartets what we've chosen that are ones we really know, not just ones that have been given to us by our coaches. For me, I think being able to choose which pieces we want to play is good.

Bethany: I feel like music has always been a big part of my life because my older sister also played the piano, so I just followed her with that, but then she also played the flute, and I didn't want to do the exact same thing as her. I was listening to Yo-Yo Ma playing "The Swan," and I was like, "Wow." A classic, and I thought, "I want to play the cello so bad." So I think that's kind of what inspired me to start with the cello and not really want to follow what my sister was doing with the flute. Hearing that was super inspirational.

Charlotte: My drive to do music is because my Dad is a musician, and he's a contemporary guitarist and does contemporary jazz, and that's his career. I think just doing music was a way to have another connection to him, and that was something that we could talk about and something that he could help me with. He often helped with my pieces, and I was playing mostly classical stuff and he wasn't really, but he knew a lot about music and that was just a great way to talk to him. Everyone in my school had to play a string instrument, so I think the reason why I kept up with it and why I liked it so much was just being able to share the musical experience with my Dad.

Debbie: I started playing piano when I was really young, when I was five, and I remember one time, when I was 16, my Mom asked me when I would stop taking piano lessons. I looked at her like, "I never thought about that." I didn't really think about an end to music because it's just all that I've known, but I did eventually stop taking lessons soon after that. It was around then that I started picking up the violin, and I think I just figured out that I enjoy music because of playing with other people. I like how different sounds come together, and that's the aspect of music that I found out I really enjoy because it's social and a connection thing. Right now, I still do music and I really don't want to stop doing orchestra because of that, because of the friends I've made and the sounds that we make. After school, I would probably still want to play.

Rachel Ruggera (cello), Charlotte, Debbie, & Kristen.

Why did all of you decide to form the Vandy Quartet?

Kristen: So, we all are the same year, and we all joined the orchestra our freshman year. Coming to college, I didn't really have a set friend group outside of the orchestra; these guys were definitely my main people that I gravitated towards, and I think because we were in orchestra together, we became really close friends. Some of us have lived together, and it kind of just worked out that all of us freshmen kind of just formed a quartet. We happened to have two violins and a viola and a cellist. Rachel actually was our cellist last year, but she's currently abroad in Madagascar [that's why she's not here now], and Bethany has been subbing in for us as cello.

Charlotte: Rachel was also in the orchestra with us and we're all friends [with her] aswell. I would say for forming the string quartet, it came from COVID because a lot of our in-person concerts got canceled. Then when we were allowed to go back to school in the 2020-21 year, we were allowed to be in-person, but we couldn't have an in-person concert, so none of our families could come. We decided to host a virtual concert and prepare our own pieces just through our own instruction and leading the group in that way. We set up our concert on Zoom, we had someone from the Marching Band give us a mic so that we could have better quality sound, and then we had around 40 people in our first Zoom concert. We prepared something from the Dvorak American String Quartet, and Kristen arranged "Married Life" from Up, and that was a really fun project to do. When Rachel was here, we would just practice in our room because we were all roommates and we all lived in Vandy. Vandy Hall is where we all got the Vandy String Quartet name because that's where we all lived, and that was a kind of fun way to just hang out too.

Note from the Editor: The Vandy Quartet is determined to learn all four movements of Antoin Dvorak's American String Quartet by the end of next year, their senior year. Keep an eye out for the rest! They're already halfway through.

Bethany, what made you decide to hop into the group once the fourth member went abroad?

Bethany: So originally, because of COVID, I wasn't involved with the orchestra last year just because of the uncertainty of everything. I didn't know if I would be able to rent a cello and stuff like that. Then this year with scheduling conflicts and stuff, I couldn't do orchestra again, but then Rachel happened to go abroad, and [the group] asked me if I wanted to join. It was a really nice way to be part of the Music Program but not have to take up a bunch of my time, so it's been really nice to start playing with them. I really missed it; it's been super fun.

Tell us a little more about Rachel!
Charlotte: Rachel is from San Diego, California. She's majoring in Biology, she's minoring in Environmental Studies, and she's also a junior, currently in Madagascar studying, doing environmental science. She was, last time we talked, studying a very endangered species of duck that only exists in a very small pond in Madagascar, and I think she started cello in middle school. During our concerts, we would always invite our professors and teachers, and she would always invite her cello coach.
Kristen: She plays a little bit of piano and does a little bit of song writing. Sometimes we write songs together because she writes lyrics and I write the music parts.
Debbie: My favorite thing about her is that she is so extremely excited and interested in so many things. She's just a wonderful presence.
Bethany: I remember meeting her freshman year and it was just us freshman cello players, so she was definitely such a friendly face, and so nice, and such a positive energy.
Charlotte: She's a very joyous person. She brings a different kind of energy to the group that sometimes brings us out of a schlump when we're practicing and things like that.
Kristen: She's just very authentic and true to herself as a person. Her interests are very broad, but she's so excited about the things that she's interested in, and that energy is infectious.

From what you've shared, it seems like the Vandy Quartet is a fairly self-contained, self-managed group. Have there been any mentors guiding you with this process?

Charlotte: We started as a very self-made group. We decided to put this quartet together.

Kristen: And we weren't a part of Chamber Music last year at all.

Charlotte: It was very much our own thing, and I think due to COVID, the Chamber Music Program participation went down a little bit, it decreased quite significantly. I think we invited our orchestra conductor John Finney to our concert, and I think he started talking about it in the Music Department, about how we were an already formed quartet. I think Sandy [Herbert, who nominated the Vandy Quartet for this award] hopped on that idea…to bring momentum back to the Program, because I think it was quite large before COVID. I think that's how it worked out. We just invited all our professors, music professors, to come to our virtual concerts, and we spread word that way.

Kristen: Sandy emailed me saying “We'd love to have you guys as part of the Chamber Program because we know you're a reputable quartet”, or whatever she heard from John Finney who recommended us, but I don't know how that worked. Sandy has been able to give us more opportunities to play, and that's the role she's played in relation to us. She's not our chamber coach; she's the head of the Chamber Music Department. Our actual coach that gives us lessons weekly is Leo Eguchi, and he is actually new faculty this year. He's the new cello coach in the Music Department, so he's been teaching us this semester and last semester, which has been great.

Bethany: Since I joined this semester, just like right when I met [Prof. Eguchi], he's been so welcoming, and he has such a warm energy. It's just so fun rehearsing with him.

Debbie: It's been awesome to work with a mentor because I think it's a really good way to grow as a musician personally and as a group. I think I've definitely been able to notice things that I was never in tune with before.

Do you have any words of advice for underclassmen trying to get involved with the Arts on campus?

Kristen: I feel like just join groups and talk to people in the Music Department, because most of my connections from BC have come from the Music Department. I didn't even come in as a Music major, but because I was just taking music classes and talking to the music professors, I really got a lot of resources that I didn't even know existed. This is how we all became friends, and I think it's a social thing for us too. It sounds generic, but just get yourself out there and find connections.

Debbie: I would say just don't worry about how good you think you are. I know a lot of people are nervous about coming in and auditioning for orchestra and joining chamber groups and that sort of thing, but it really isn't competitive here, and that's what I enjoy about the Music Department here. I think it's just a really good way for everyone to try it out, and everyone here gives everyone a chance and opportunities to learn more and join things.

Bethany: Just echoing off that, when I was in high school, my orchestra was super small, so coming here I was super intimidated to audition for everything, but everyone is just so nice. Everyone in the Music Department is so nice, and they're so welcoming.

Kristen: It's a very supportive environment and has a wide range of skills and backgrounds, which is really awesome because you get to learn from your peers, and we all have different experience levels.

This year’s Arts Festival theme is “New Nostalgia”. What does this theme mean to you? How has your artistic expression evolved since coming to BC?

Charlotte: I think it comes in terms of being older and becoming mentors. Going into college, I was very worried about finding a social group, and this may sound very cliche, but joining orchestra was my social outlet. I looked up to the seniors who seemed really close to each other and all on eboard, and now [four] of us are on eboard, including Rachel. We have become these mentors (I hope) for these freshman, and I see them and I've had conversations with them [about] their worries finding social groups, and coming out of COVID, and how that's going to work out; I think that the fact that we’ve experienced the beginning of the end and we're also experiencing the end of it shows that it'll all work out in the end. You should feel comfortable talking to your older peers because they are not above you: they're here to support you. I remember having a conversation with one of the eboard members when I was a sophomore, and she gave me all kinds of advice about orchestra but also [about] academic and college life in general. I found that really valuable, and I hope that we can offer that to the younger years as well.

Kristen: Before coming to BC, I really didn’t plan on being this involved with music. I knew I was going to do something with music because I didn't want to let that go and that was some of my main extracurricular activities in highschool, but I didn't know to what extent. I honestly wasn't even planning on joining the orchestra freshman year. I literally hopped on a bus 20 minutes before the last audition slot and just showed up completely unprepared. I had not practiced in three months, but I was like "Screw it, I’m going to audition, see what happens." Total stroke of luck that I even got in. All of this came because I just made a split second decision—I wasn't planning on it. The same thing happened with my major. I didn't plan on coming in as a Music major or even a minor. I wasn't planning on doing anything with music academically, but I just took classes that sounded interesting in the Music Department. Since then, my knowledge of music and understanding of it has expanded so much. I didn't really have a strong chamber setting in highschool. I played in some smaller groups but they weren't this developed or committed. We would play one piece together, and then we would change groups and cycle through people. Now, I feel like I can be a lot more involved in [BC's] Music Department, and it has given me a lot more confidence as a musician and as a student because I feel like the Music Department is a very close knit community in BC. Within the students that are part of the Music Department, there is a camaraderie that exists. For me coming into BC, like Charlotte said, it was more of a social thing, but for me it also gave me more expansion on artistry rather than technique. In high school, my teacher was very technique-heavy, but now with Leo, he’s always talking about colors, like what kinds of colors or characters can we apply to whatever we're playing. I think there's a lot more work done on artistry and expanding that element.

Bethany: I think coming into BC, I also definitely wanted to keep music a part of my life, so I decided to join orchestra. The friendships that you form in orchestra, they're kind of more meaningful because everyone has this shared love of music, and it's really nice to be able to come together and share that with everyone. But also, sophomore and first semester junior year with COVID, I wasn't really able to participate in that sort of stuff. With COVID [being more under control], being able to see [the group] again has been super nice, so I feel like Arts Fest with everyone being able to come together is going to be so much fun.

Debbie: I've never had the chance to play with a lot of different types of groups. I did orchestra in high school, but I've always wanted to form a chamber group. My friend that plays the flute [and I] would just play duets, and we both really wanted to do chamber but we didn't have enough people in our school's music program to do that. It's been really cool to come here and be surrounded by people—at least more people—who enjoy music, and it was cool to happen to have a string quartet and be able to have this opportunity to join a chamber group. It's just really crazy how this small thing, us joining the orchestra, has opened up so many doors for us, it's so weird to think about. This is just crazy because I didn't think any of this would be happening.

Bethany: It's crazy because I feel like it's a friendship that's definitely going to last and we're all going to stay in touch and we can always just play music together.

Us at the Arts Journal are grateful for the opportunity to interview the Vandy Quartet and get to know more about them and the Arts On Campus.

Edited by: Sindey Amar 24’