The sound of friendship

Violinist Steve Rose and cellist Brant Taylor first met, briefly, as students at a chamber music festival in Minnesota. Unbeknownst to them, they would form their own ensemble just a year later at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, where Brant was finishing his undergraduate degree and Steve had just enrolled as a master’s student. That fall, in 1992, they formed the Everest String Quartet with fellow Eastman students Jeanne Preucil (violin) and Joan DerHovsepian (viola).

The Everest String Quartet’s five seasons together were prolific. The young ensemble won prizes at the 1993 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and 1995 Banff International String Quartet Competition, and from 1994 to 1997 they were the resident string quartet of the Midland-Odessa Symphony (now the West Texas Symphony)—an unusual arrangement which also appointed them principals of the orchestra’s string sections.

The quartet scattered in 1997, its members winning coveted orchestra jobs. Brant plays in the Chicago Symphony; Joan leads the Houston Symphony’s viola section; and Steve and Jeanne, who married shortly after the quartet formed, both hold titled chairs in the Cleveland Orchestra, he as principal second and she in the first violin section.

Steve and Brant recently talked Brahms and reminisced about their quartet days over Zoom.

How did the Everest Quartet get started?

Brant Taylor: I was a senior at Eastman; Steve was a first-year masters student. The idea that the four of us would make a decent quartet came from our teachers, who were in the Cleveland Quartet.

Steve Rose: I can't remember if that's what precipitated us reading music together for the first time, or if it sort of happened anyway—that's foggy to me. But I know we started playing together really early on in the school year, and it clicked right away. When Jeanne and I got married on October 10, I remember thinking, Do we invite them to the wedding?

What were those years like?

Steve: We entered the Fischoff Competition [in South Bend, Indiana] a matter of months after forming the quartet.

Brant: We jokingly called it our “Mega Midwest Tour,” because we also played a concert at the Suzuki Music School in Iowa City that Jeanne’s parents founded. We slept in a Motel Six, all four of us in one room. We made T-shirts.

Steve: I might still have mine somewhere… I probably wouldn't fit in it, that's for sure!

Are there ever Everest reunions beyond just the two of you?

Steve: We haven't had an official quartet reunion performance in a while, with all four of us, but we've had a handful of personal, for-fun reunions. There's a picture somewhere of our old promo picture from the early ’90s next to a couple other shots along the way.

Brant: Steve and I have two or three summer festivals that we make a point of attending at the same time together every year. More recently, Joan, our violist, has been there [at the Mimir Festival, in Fort Worth]. So, three quarters of our old quartet plays together at least once or twice a year now!

You both played the Brahms Double with the Elgin Symphony this symphony, as well. What are your personal histories with this piece?

Steve: That was my first and only time playing it so far. Brant has played it a few times—I've been in the audience for one of those [at Eastman]!

It's a piece I'd always wanted to play, and it just never came up. I've loved it since I was a teenager; I remember wearing out my Oistrakh/Rostropovich recording. I feel like it's a symphony with two solo instruments—all of us can share.

Brant: This will be my fourth or maybe fifth time playing it. I won the concerto competition at Eastman with it my senior year, and I've played it a couple of times since then, including with Yuan-Qing Yu, one of [the Chicago Symphony’s] concertmasters. But I've always had it in my mind to do it with Steve, for obvious reasons.

I've always really loved this particular concerto, first of all because I love Brahms, but also because it features two like-sounding instruments. That’s part of the fun: When do we become one thing? When do we go our separate ways? It's all amazingly high-quality music with all kinds of different interactions, most of which go under the general banner of chamber music. I think of myself as more of a collaborator by nature: less flash, less theatrics, just show me the musical depth. Now, I understand how ingeniously it's put together in a way that I didn't when I was 22.

I've sensed at times that people have slightly polarized reactions to this piece. I don't really understand that. To me, it's almost a piece that could make you fall in love with Brahms if it was the first thing you'd ever heard by him. There’s so much emotion, but in a cleanly put-together intellectual package.

Last one: What do you admire about each other musically and personally?

Steve: My answer might fit both parts of the question. Beyond my orchestra colleagues, by far the most time I've spent on stage with somebody has been Brant. He’s my closest friend: even though Brant and I might not talk on the phone for six weeks, when we do talk, it’s like I saw him two hours ago. It feels the same onstage.

I've always appreciated his balance, both personally and musically. He does everything for the right reasons—he never sacrifices for short-term or superficial glory.

Brant: I should’ve turned my camera off so that you wouldn't be able to see the tears coming down my face!

Well, it's true: people tend to play like they are. Our friendship on- and offstage is hard to separate. Steve has a poetic, sincere quality to his playing—I would put him in a category that we sometimes talk about wistfully, where you can turn on a radio and tell who's playing by how they sound. But he's one of the few people in my life that I would call if I had a crisis at 2 a.m.

I realized I spend a lot of time around people who talk a lot more than I do. He and I are similar in that way: you learn more by listening than by talking. Our conversations together are always wonderful, because we're really hearing each other.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.