This is a photograph that I shot of the Da Vinci Quartet in late October 1982 for the cover of a local magazine in Colorado Springs.
The quartet’s premiere Colorado Springs performance was at 3:00 p.m. on November 21 that year at the Fine Arts Center. A chamber music quartet includes two violins, a viola, and a cello. The Da Vinci’s four accomplished classical musicians at the start were Jerilyn Jorgensen, Renee Tegel, Katharine Knight, and Matthew Michelic. The quartet was sponsored by the Colorado Springs Symphony.
The musicians were good sports to haul themselves and their instruments up Ute Pass to a 9.000-foot-high meadow off the Rampart Range Road on a cold, early morning a few days after a snowfall.
I carried their folding chairs and a bag of Canon cameras and lenses a couple hundred yards to my chosen spot for the shoot. They sat down and commenced playing while I picked the moments to record for posterity. Besides being outside in fresh air and surrounded by stunning views, the spirited and joyful music was unforgettably fantastic too.
The quartet, with different members of the ensemble, continued thrilling audiences, recording albums, appeared on PBS in 1998, fostered musical outreach programs, taught music in universities and colleges, and performed the complete cycle of Beethoven’s amazing string quartets until disbanding in the 2000s.
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