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John Gilhooly . . . . . . . . 13 December 2010
Artistic & Executive Director
Wigmore Hall
36 Wigmore Street
London W1U 2BP
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Dear Mr Gilhooly
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On my way to the Hampstead Theatre last Saturday evening I happened to meet my old and distinguished colleague Gavin Henderson. He told me that the City of London International String Quartet Competition had been adopted by the Wigmore Hall, and that it was now the Wigmore Hall London International String Quartet Competition. I was most interested to learn of this second metamorphosis of the Competition, and it occurs to me that it might be of interest to you to know some of the details of how it was started in 1978-9 as the City of Portsmouth International String Quartet Competition.
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The then Leader of the Portsmouth City Council, Richard Sotnick, had requested Dennis Sayer, from the City Chief Executive Office, and me, City Arts Administrator, to create a music competition, to coincide the following year with his term of office as Lord Mayor. Gavin, as Director of the Portsmouth Festival, had invited Yehudi Menuhin and Hepzibah, together with the Philharmonia Orchestra, to Portsmouth, and I had suggested to Richard Sotnick that we should invite Menuhin to the reception after the concert, and take the opportunity of consulting him about the projected competition. Menuhin immediately offered to give us his advice and his help, and became Artistic Director and Chairman of the Jury. Dennis and I also had enormous support from Ifrah Neaman. Our feasibility study involved many meetings with him and with Menuhin, and visits to Leeds and to Colmar to study their competitions. It was Menuhin’s suggestion that the competition should be quartets, because of the excellence of British teamwork, and there being sufficient competitions for solo instruments. Because the City wanted fairly mature players to compete, with a joint age of a maximum of 100 years, Menuhin offered a special prize for younger contestants. He also insisted that he should speak after the competition to all performers, winners and losers. I am thrilled to think that I played a part in this process all those many years ago...
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May I add my good wishes to the future of the Competition.
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Yours sincerely
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From: Andrew Fletcher [mailto:afletcher@wigmore-hall.org.uk]
Sent: 24 March 2011 15:21
To: peterzan.berlin@virgin.net
Subject: Response to your letter
Dear Mr Zander
Thank you very much for your letters to John Gilhooly of 13 December 2010 and 23 March 2011. I am sorry that you did not receive our reply to your first letter, in which Mr Gilhooly thanked you for the information regarding the provenance of the Quartet Competition. He was interested to read it, and we also picked it up on your online blog!
Many thanks for taking the trouble to get in touch and I hope you will be able to attend the next Competition at Wigmore Hall in 2012. More information can be found on our website: http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/competitions/wigmore-hall-london-international-string-quartet-competition/2012-competition
With all best wishes
Andrew Fletcher
Andrew Fletcher
Executive Assistant to the Director
Wigmore Hall
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To which I replied the same day:
Thank you so much for your note, Andrew Fletcher, and for the relevant information, which I shall check out.
Best wishes
Yours sincerely
Peter Zander
And they all lived happily ever after, in the those dark Grimm fairy tales...
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