JAVS Summer 1998

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RICHARD FERRIN OPENLYAND UNABASHEDLYWISHES TO CELEBRATE WITH OTHER VIOLISTS HIS FIRST THIRTY YEARS IN THE CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Richard Ferrin grew up in Pratt, Kansas, and studied violin with Benita Mossman, Viola Forsell, and Loren Crawford. He received two degrees from the Eastman School of Music, studying with Samuel Belov and Millard Taylor. From the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: "Richard Ferrin is a thorough master of the techniques of his instrument and has a huge, vibrant tone." Further studies were taken at USC in the master class ofJascha Heifetz, playing viola in Friday after noon chamber music sessions in Clark House or the home of Mr. Heifetz. Several times Heifetz would perform in these sessions in addition to getting involved in fiercely contested ping-pong doubles matches. Ferrin was viola soloist with solo cellist Gabor Rejto in Strauss's Don Quixote with the USC Symphony. He appeared as guest violist in lngolf Dahl's Piano Quartet with Eudice Shapiro, Gabor Rejto, and Lillian Steuber, piano. Ferrin studied viola with Sanford Schonbach at USC and with William Primrose at the Music Academy of the West. Primrose gave him very important professional ad vice without which Ferrin later would not have played his successful audition for the Chicago Symphony. He played viola with Henri Temianka in a performance of the Mendelssohn Octet on a Temianka Southern California Chamber Orches tra concert at UCLA. 1957 Ferrin receives a Sibelius Scholarship, granted by American Finlandia Foundation, enabling him to study at Sibelius Academy. When Sibelius dies, Ferrin is invited by the Finnish government to attend the composer's state funeral at Great Church in Helsinki. 1962 Ferrin receives grant from University of Washington to study Pedagogy of the Violin and Viola in the Soviet Union and interviews leading professors, listens to their students perform at conservatories in Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa. During the last three years as a member of the violin faculty at U of W, he is also principal violist of the Seattle Symphony under Milton Katims, director. Late 1960s and early 1970s, Ferrin is violist with Chicago Symphony Trio that includes Samuel Magad, CSO con certmaster, and Leonard Chausow, assistant principal cellist. Guest appearances with Mischa Dichter and Jeffrey Siegel, pianists. Ferrin teaches violin and viola on faculty of North Shore Music Center. He is a member of the artist faculty at AFM-sponsored Congress of Strings for six summers at USC, Cal State Northridge, University of Washington, and Cincinnati Conservatory. Late 1970s, early 1980s, Ferrin teaches on several occasions at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and Madi son in place of Bernard Zaslav, when the Fine Arts Quartet is on tour. He teaches violin at the American Conservatory and is first violinist of the Landolfi Quartet; presents several concerts including one at Eastman School ofMusic. 1980 Since this date, Ferrin is a member of award-winning CSO ensemble, Chicago Pro Musica, and performs with the group at international festivals in Tokyo, the Osaka Exposition, Australian Bicentennial Festivals, Valencia Festival in Spain, Bahnhof Rolandseck Fest in Bad Godesberg, Germany; at Glinka Hall, Leningrad, at 92nd St. "Y" in New York; and Davies Hall, San Francisco. Chicago Tribune writes, "This ensemble is one of the most versatile and artistically ac complished in the American chamber music scene." On 27 January 1999, Chicago Pro Musica will give the first Chicago performance of "Night Window," for clarinet, viola, and piano, by Brett Dean, violist, composer, and member of the Berlin Philharmonic. From Chicago Sun-Times, 13 May 1997, "Chicago Pro Musica, whose members performed ten of the twelve Lucian Berio's Sequenzas in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, NWU, brought more than virtuosity to the stage.... Richard Ferrin played both Sequenza VI (for viola) and Sequenza VIII (for violin). His assertive playing of their austere, repetitive melodic lines and non-stop virtuoso requirements brought to mind Bach's solo partitas."

On 15 January 1980, Ferrin gives first Chicago performance of Shostakovich's Sonata with Mary Sauer, pianist, on CSO Artists Chamber Music Series at Orchestra Hall, latter broadcast on WFMT.