Marlboro once again

This is proving to be a Marlboro summer! After several summers of missing it entirely, this is wonderful. We are here this morning for the Schubert String Quartet in G Major. The first violin is being played by Joseph Lin:

--> "Sought after as a performer and teacher, Joseph Lin (Pre-College ’96) appears regularly at halls, festivals, and conservatories throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe. He was first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet from 2011 to 2018 before stepping down to devote more time to his four young children; he continues to teach violin and chamber music at Juilliard, leading several artistic initiatives and enjoying collaborations with both students and colleagues. His 2019 projects include a collaboration with Robert Levin playing Beethoven and Schubert on period instruments, a Musicians from Marlboro tour on violin and viola, collaborations with Juilliard students during ChamberFest, and performances of Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto. In 2020, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Lin will lead a series of performances of the late string quartets for Camerata Pacifica and continue explorations of the sonatas on period instrumen

From 2007 to 2011, Lin was an assistant professor at Cornell University, where he organized the inaugural Chinese Musicians Residency, in 2009. The following year, he led a project with Cornell composers to study Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas and create new works inspired by Bach, culminating in a series of concerts premiering the new works alongside Bach’s. Last year, he performed the complete Bach sonatas and partitas at Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo. His Bach exploration continues in 2020, the 300th anniversary of the sonatas and partitas, with complete cycles in Boston and Philadelphia.

Lin was a founding member of the Formosa Quartet, which won the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition. In 1996, he won first prize at the Concert Artists Guild International Competition and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. In 1999, he was selected for the Pro Musicis International Award and, in 2001, he won first prize at the inaugural Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand. His recordings include the music of Korngold and Busoni with pianist Benjamin Loeb; an album of Debussy, Franck, and Milhaud with pianist Orion Weiss; and the complete unaccompanied works of Bach and Ysaÿe. His recording of Mozart’s A Major Violin Concerto with original cadenzas was released in 2017. With the Juilliard Quartet, he recorded Schubert’s Death and the Maiden and Elliot Carter’s Fifth Quartet as well as the quartet’s most recent album, of Beethoven, Davidovsky, and Bartók. During the summer season, he is a regular artist at the Tanglewood and Marlboro festivals."

Lin, whose violin teachers have included Mary Canberg (Diploma ’45), Shirley Givens (Diploma ’53), and Lynn Chang (Pre-College ’69),  graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 2000, and in 2002 began an extended exploration of China including studying Chinese music in Beijing as a Fulbright scholar.

  How many men would voluntarily relinquish one of the most prestigious positions in the musical world to spend more time with their children?

Joseph Lin

Ellen got back from Pennsylvania at about 8pm last night, and we got home at about 10:30pm. Tuesday, I inked the tax forms in the morning and then after lunch I took Savanna's car to the Amherst College Library. I was most interested to see Robert Alter's Hebrew Bible and Commentary, 3 vols., which was released earlier this year to glowing reviews. But alas, the Frost Library does not have it. The only library in the area that has it is the DuBois Library at UMass, and even there it is on Reserve, which might mean I couldn't see it since I'm not a student. I checked World Cat and the next closest library to me with a copy is in Manchester, NH. So I decided to bite the bullet and buy it. I found a new copy on Abe Books that was $35 off list price, so I ordered it.

Lacking that at the Library, I turned to other interests. I found Jon Lane's book on the Mississippi Freedom Schools of the summer of 1964 which mentions Wally Roberts several times and has his picture. Earlier this summer i had been remembering him and his wife  Jane Tillinghast, who were friends at Brown). I found two books about the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 ( an interest of long-standing because my father was a ten-year-old boy living in Atlanta that summer). More on that later. And I found a book on Postmodernism that had two essays by CTS faculty, Ken Stone and Laurel Schneider, who I had course-work with back in 2000 when I was Pastor-in-Residence at CTS.