News archive : 2009 >Richard becomes the Jerusalem Quartet's cellist...at 5 hours notice

On May 24th, after a quiet lazy Sunday lunchtime, Richard received a call from Amihai Grosz, violist of the Jerusalem Quartet asking whether he would be free to replace their cellist Kyril Zlotnikov for a concert at Mill Hill Music Club in London.

"Sure, no problem. When's the concert?", Richard said.

"Tonight!"

It was now getting close to around 2pm. Concert was at 7.30pm. Richard had never played any of the suggested Quartet repertoire before. So, what happened? Richard explains;

"It was a true universal team effort. Sergei (second violin) sent me pdfs of the music so I could at least read them through on the computer screen before leaving my apartment for a 4.30 rehearsal.

After one quick 'flick through' and packing my concert clothes, Amihai had already arrived with a car to take me to the rehearsal.

The rehearsal was at 4.30 in North London and then...it hits me...I am sitting as the actual cellist of one of the greatest young quartets in the world today. And, to top it off, they're all great people and friends who I like and respect so much.

The concert programme was revised because some of the cello music had left the country with Kyril. So, we played two Haydn Quartets - one was from their recent Harmonia Mundi release. In addition, we performed the famous Notturno movement from the second Borodin Quartet - a piece which I had also never played.

It was an amazing experience to be thrown literally in to the deep end with it all. But it was incredibly liberating and it really felt like we could have been playing the pieces together for months. I've always been good at sight-reading so I didn't find it too complicated to sound like I'd been playing the works for longer than an hour!"

The concert was extremely successful and thoroughly enjoyed by both audience and performers.

So, what happened to Kyril, the fast disappearing cellist? Kyril's wife was taken in to hospital in the morning, expecting to give birth to their baby quite a few days earlier than predicted. Kyril rushed to Heathrow, flew to Lisbon and, yes, made it in time!

As Richard says;

"Such a nice moment of the day was that, whilst we were rehearsing, Kyril called us to say that he'd made it on time and had just become a Daddy."

The life of a musician rarely gets better than days like these!"

The Jerusalem Quartet's website can be found here.