Violist Martha Strongin Katz: Teaching the Whole Student
Martha Strongin Katz
Violist Martha Strongin Katz was recently touched by an email one of her students, Leah Swann, sent her. The student quoted novelist Henry Miller: “Art teaches nothing except the significance of life.� That maxim dovetails rather nicely with Katz’s goals in teaching. More than technically adroit players, she wants to help her students become musicians who inhabit and care about the world around them; whose perspective is enriched by art, philosophy, and literature; and who are unafraid to share their creative convictions. “I want to open them up to many different ideas,� said the violist in a recent conversation. “Our lessons are not just weekly checkups on what they’re doing with their fingers.�
Katz, who won the Geneva International Viola Competition in 1969 and was the founding violist of the Cleveland Quartet, has taught at New England Conservatory since 2001. Besides her studio lessons, she also coaches chamber music ensembles—including the Parker Quartet, which won the 2005 Concert Artists Guild and Bordeaux International Competitions, the Ariel Quartet, which this year won the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and the multiple prize-winning Jupiter Quartet. Her comprehensive approach to teaching the whole student was rewarded in an unusual way this spring when two of her viola students, Swann ’07 G.D. and Itamar Ringel ’08 D.M., were named Albert Schweitzer Fellows. These young musicians will spend a year doing outreach work in a public health program that has traditionally matched young scientists and communities with unmet medical needs.
Daughter of a painter and sister of the poet Lynn Strongin, Katz had a “very rich artistic upbringing.� Always interested in other art forms, she has “from time to time, when not doing a lot of playing, veered towards other things. I always came back to music, but I could have gone into fields such as painting and drawing,� she says. This wealth of experience now informs her teaching.
“I have a very interesting studio, furnished with books and pictures,� she said. “It’s kind of the students’ room. Recently two of them redid it, decorating it with flowers. They put books on display, open to certain pages—the other day, it was T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. There are art books, too. Every day when I go in there, they are open to different pictures.�
Not only are her students exposed to other arts, but the atmosphere of Katz’s studio–comfortable, warm, supportive—allows them to develop musically in their own good time, to take creative risks in a nurturing environment.
“Students are always progressing even if sometimes it’s an uphill climb,� Katz said, “and they need to develop the courage to slip back on occasion. In learning to play the viola, to be a musician, you can’t push a button and get an instant answer. You have to be willing to take time, to do what may not seem time effective. Results don’t always show up week to week. People don’t develop weekly.�
Katz’s students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and range in age from undergraduate to graduate students. “There are several Israelis, Lebanese, Indian/Persian, and black students. It’s a very integrated class,� Katz says. “What’s especially nice is there are three freshmen as well as a doctoral candidate. They all support each other. And the violists of the Ariel, Parker and Jupiter quartets bring a lot of inspiration to the younger ones and to each other.�
Among the risk-taking ventures Katz has encouraged her students to try is improvisation. Having worked with some of the faculty and students in NEC’s Contemporary Improvisation department, Katz has herself become fascinated with this on-the-spot musical invention. “It gives you the freedom to be spontaneous,� she says. “That quality of spontaneity is, of course, a goal in classical performance too, but improvisation opens another door, allowing you to delve directly into your heart without the intermediary of black notes on a page. I improvise a lot with my students. They giggle. I play and they do too. They’re tickled and they forget themselves. I’m all for technique, but it’s critical to get the balance right. When you become fixated on perfection, that’s dangerous.�
Katz also encourages her students to participate in outreach activities, even those that don’t involve playing an instrument. She feels it’s important to “do something for charity and outside one’s realm of expertise. One needs to have an identity apart from music. I tell them it’s important to once a week do something for other people.�