THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
BASMATI QUARTET WINS MAJOR COMPETITION

They didn't think they had a chance. They were only doing it for the experience.

The four Shepherd School of Music students in the Basmati String Quartet considered themselves too green to win something as big as the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition, which attracts the best ensembles from major music schools and conservatories across the country.

The Basmati musicians have been together for less than a year, and groups that win the Coleman have typically been together three, four or five years. Past winners include the Tokyo String Quartet and the American String Quartet. They also are very young. Only one of the Basmati musicians was old enough to rent a car at the airport.

But on April 24, they took first prize at the Coleman, held in Pasadena, Calif. And, on May 9, they placed second at the only other major national chamber music competition, the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in South Bend, Ind.

The four students are Fia Mancini, violin; Alessandra Jennings, violin; David Filner; viola; and Erin Breene, cello.

It's a "dream come true" for Breene, who recalls that just a few months ago the four students--three of them sophomores--had come together to fulfill a course requirement. Now they're thinking seriously about going pro.

And why shouldn't they? Numerous Coleman winners have gone on to stellar professional careers, including the Rice students' coach, Paul Katz, the Shepherd School's professor of cello and chamber music who is a founding member of the famed Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Quartet.

Soon after the Basmati group formed, Katz noted a special chemistry among the members and he has been working closely with them ever since. Katz says that groups competing in prestigious competitions such as Coleman and Fischoff are typically preselected by their music school, however the Basmati String Quartet came together on its own.

The Basmati musicians will never forget their Coleman weekend. Katz let Breene take his rare and priceless Guarnerius cello, built in 1669. When they prepared to board the Houston-to-Dallas shuttle--the first leg of their Los Angeles trip--she was told that there was no room for the cello. Fortunately, the instrument was able to rest on three empty seats.

On the morning of April 24 they arrived at Caltech, the site of the competition, and at 8:30 a.m., it was time to play for the judges. They took their places on a stage they had never seen before. They performed a movement from Beethoven's Op. 74, "The Harp," and some difficult spots in Ravel's "String Quartet in F Major," which, following the Beethoven performance, the judges asked them to play.

After their performance, they no longer felt any pressure because they didn't believe they were serious contenders. They viewed the rest of the weekend as a time for fun. In a rented station wagon dubbed "The Basmatimobile" they took in Venice Beach, Beverly Hills and Hollywood.

When they returned for the award presentations that evening, "we weren't even nervous," Mancini says, "because we knew we didn't win."

When the Basmati Quartet was announced as the winner of Coleman-Barstow Award for Strings, Mancini looked at Jennings and asked: "What did we win?" She wondered if it might be a consolation prize. "Did he say barstool?" Mancini asked.

Soon after the ceremony they gave Katz a call. On his answering machine they left a somewhat hysterical and teasing message, with all four shouting over each other: "We're not going to tell you what happened! But call us back at this number ..." They left him the wrong number.

The Basmati musicians feel deeply indebted to Katz. "Most of our success if not all of our success is due to his coaching," says Filner. "He took that extra step for us. He's not only been an incredible coach, but has been great in inspiring us and pushing us when we needed it. We have so much respect for him. He's such an incredible musician and person."

Katz says that he is "very intense as a teacher and gets very involved in helping my students when I see their dedication. Once I feel the dedication, then I give everything I can."

Last spring, Katz and his wife, Martha Katz, a professor of viola who is also a founding member of the Cleveland Quartet, led a Beethoven quartet seminar for Shepherd School students. Paul Katz says that within the Shepherd School about six ensembles played at a level good enough to enter competitions such as the Coleman and Fischoff.

"That's a great compliment to the level of serious chamber music at Shepherd and doesn't take anything away from the Basmati," Katz says. "I think they have something unique in terms of chemistry."

The four musicians also are grateful to their principal teachers: Kenneth Goldsmith, professor of violin, has been teaching Jennings and Mancini; Wayne Brooks, associate professor of viola, has been teaching Filner; and Katz has been teaching Breene.

One of the secrets to the success of the Basmati Quartet, Filner believes, is that its members' personalities mesh. "Very rarely do we get in bad moods," he says.

They certainly don't take themselves too seriously. A poster announcing the quartet's May 4 Anne and Charles Duncan Hall recital featured a photo of a young girl screaming in horror: "They're playing the 'Harp' again?" It was an acknowledgment that people at the Shepherd School had probably heard them practice the piece more than a few times.

The group's name, Basmati, which is an aromatic Asian rice, is a playful reference to Rice University.

Noting that Filner gets to spend hours and hours making music with three delightful women, Katz says he has given him the nickname "Lucky Dave."

Filner, who is the oldest member of the group, quips, "I feel like the dad sometimes." The Fischoff competition took place only two weeks after the Coleman. The Basmati members say they felt more pressure the second time around because they were coming into the Fischoff with the reputation of being major prize winners.

The string group that placed first at the Fischoff was the Corigliano Quartet, comprised of graduate students from the Indiana University School of Music. The cellist of the quartet, Jeffrey Zeigler, graduated last year from the Shepherd School after studying here with Katz for three years.

The Basmati Quartet is on the East Coast this summer, studying in Virginia at the Audubon Quartet Seminar and performing at the Yellow Barn Music Festival in Vermont.

When summer ends, the group will temporarily disband. Filner, a Shepherd School graduate, hopes to land a job with an orchestra. Mancini is transferring to the Juilliard School of Music. Jennings and Breene will return to the Shepherd School. After honing their individual skills, they all hope to reunite as a professional quartet.

All four musicians have been playing music since an early age. Breene began taking music lessons before she could walk. As a 15-month-old in Waupaca, Wis., she took her first cello lessons, although technically she wasn't playing on a cello. It was an old detergent box with a yardstick stuck through it. Enrolled in the Suzuki Method Program, Breene worked on finger movements.

She has come a long way from playing a detergent box to living a dream come true, although she still must deal with reality. Regarding a certain 1669 Guarnerius cello, she laments: "I had to give it back!