Juilliard alumna and Cypress String Quartet founding cellist Jennifer Kloetzel has been named winner of the Third Annual Robert Sherman Award for Music Education and Community Outreach. The award was presented to Ms. Kloetzel in New York City on Wednesday, September 22nd by Harold (Terry) McGraw III, President and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies, during The McGraw-Hill Companies’ Young Artists Showcase broadcast weekly on The New York Times classical music radio station, 96.3 FM WQXR.
The Robert Sherman Award recognizes a Juilliard alumnus or alumna for leadership in providing enrichment to broad audiences through music education programs and for outstanding musicianship. The winner is selected upon recommendation by The Juilliard School. Sponsored by McGraw-Hill Companies, the award includes a $10,000 grant to the Cypress String Quartet to continue their exemplary work in outreach and music education.
Along with the Cypress String Quartet, Ms. Kloetzel has co-created some of the most innovative and thoughtful educational programs in the U.S. Since 1996 the Cypress has reached an estimated 90,000 students through educational activities. These have included Native Americans on pueblos in New Mexico and inner-city students in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago.
“The Cypress has made education a top priority, right alongside becoming one of the world’s elite string quartets and championing the music of contemporary American composers,” comments Ms. Kloetzel. “A good example is our ‘Call & Response’ program, which blends all three of these elements together.”
The Cypress String Quartet’s “Call & Response” program features a new work — commissioned from a leading contemporary American composer — written in response to two existing masterworks of string quartet repertoire. The Cypress commissions the work, creates lesson plans based upon the program, presents the music and discussion in dozens of schools each year, then performs the three works together in a series of concerts.
The Cypress String Quartet’s rigorous touring schedule and outreach activities, which include “Call & Response”, numerous residencies, “Adopt-a-School”, and “Music Literacy”, bring them into the lives and consciousness of a variety of chamber music audiences. The success of the Cypress’s pedagogy efforts is recognized by the California Arts Council’s “CAC Exemplary Educator” award in 2004 and through the support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Ms. Kloetzel is a winner of a Fulbright Grant to England, a Presser Music Award, and Juilliard’s “Peter Mennin Prize”. She has appeared as guest artist with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and was chosen by André Previn to appear as a “Rising Star” at the Caramoor Festival.
Live recordings of cello music by Ms. Kloetzel and performances by the Cypress String Quartet were featured live on WQXR on September 29th at 9:05 P.M.
# # #
The McGraw-Hill Companies’ Robert Sherman Award for Music Education and Community Outreach was created to honor radio personality, journalist, author, concert narrator, and teacher Robert Sherman and to mark the 25th anniversary of his hosting The McGraw-Hill Companies’ Young Artists Showcase. To foster excellence in music education at the community level, the award recognizes a Juilliard alumnus or alumna for leadership in providing enrichment to broad audiences through music education programs and for outstanding musicianship. The winner, who is provided with a $10,000 grant to further his or her mission in music education and community outreach, is selected upon recommendation of the Juilliard School.
Since its inception in 1996, the Cypress String Quartet — Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, violins; Ethan Filner, viola; Jennifer Kloetzel, cello — has performed to great acclaim worldwide. Praised by the Los Angeles Times for its “musical astuteness and virtuoso resources,” the Quartet has made regular appearances on NPR’s “Performance Today,” and has been featured in Chamber Music Magazine as a “Generation X Ensemble to Watch.” The Cypress String Quartet has performed extensively in prominent venues around the world, including concerts in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Baltimore, London and Tokyo, among many others.
Jeffrey Black, Executive Director
Cypress Performing Arts Association
415-265-9045
jeff@cypressquartet.com