'Artistically we are a democracy': What the Ragazze Quartet can teach us about collaboration

It’s no secret that today’s musician needs to be so much more than just a performer. On top of extraordinary talent, they often need to plan programmes, book venues, market both themselves and their performances, manage multiple social media platforms and respond to an ever-changing travel and rehearsal schedule in real time. It is in these moments that being surrounded by people with the same skillset and an equal understanding of what’s at stake can be a godsend. The all-women Ragazze Quartet is an excellent example of this camaraderie in action. An artistic democracy, the Quartet seamlessly combines enormous talent with unconventional programmes and an impressively efficient division of labour behind the scenes.

When I sit down to chat with the Quartet it is after one such schedule change, and while cellist Rebecca Wise, violinist Jeanita Vriens and violist Annemijn Bergkotte are free to chat, violinist Rosa Arnold is in another meeting for a separate project. Vriens admits that splitting up to meet growing responsibilities has recently become a necessity. ‘In the last few years, we have come to terms with the fact that the four of us can't do everything’. However, when I ask Wise, Vriens and Bergkotte about their offstage roles it certainly sounds like they’ve got their bases covered. While Vriens manages the Quartet’s website, newsletters and Twitter account, Wise updates the group’s Instagram account and, with Vriens, keeps a handle on Ragazze’s long-term planning. Bergkotte sources the group’s music, and also organises travel and venue relationships on an ad hoc basis, focusing on the details that can often be forgotten. ‘I like to do the small bits that maybe fall off somebody else's plate,’ she says.

​​One of the Quartet's most recent collaborative projects, the album Open Spaces, was released in April in collaboration with composer and violist Garth Knox (Image courtesy of the Ragazze Quartet)​​​​

I don’t need to ask whether one member has emerged as the Quartet’s creative leader, it’s clear that one isn’t needed here. ‘We are all the creative brains behind the Quartet,’ Wise explains early on in our chat and Vriens adds, ‘Artistically we are really a democracy, the four of us. We all have our inputs, and we brainstorm together, and we all develop our programmes.’ With the Quartet’s busy schedule, each programme is now spearheaded by one or two members of the group, but input is freely communicated across the Quartet. In terms of inspiration, the members draw on a range of artforms for ideas and contacts. ‘It takes years actually,’ says Bergkotte about Ragazze’s programme development process, ‘we try to go to a lot of concerts and theatre just to get inspired and find directors and actors and singers who might be interesting to work with.’ While collaboration within the group is completely democratic, Ragazze are finding that they have an increasing amount of bargaining power when working with external partners. Vriens notes that, ‘For our first collaborations we were either a smaller co-producer or we just joined forces with a theatre group for a play. Now as our organisation is growing, we also are more of the main producer of things and the ideas come from the four of us.’

One of the projects the Ragazze Quartet has taken on is the artistic leadership of Amersfoort’s September Me Festival. While joint leadership of festivals and organisations is unusual in itself, sharing the role among four people is rarer still. I asked Wise, Vriens and Bergkotte what creative leadership shared between four people looks like. ‘Slow.’ Wise responds immediately Making programme decisions between four people takes time, but Vriens acknowledges that this lengthy decision-making process does have an upside: ‘Because we also have our own different kinds of interests, it's a very diverse festival. We feel the festival's kind of like our playground, we get to do all the stuff that is maybe difficult to sell to programmers.’

Relationships within the group are respectful and affectionate, and it’s clear the members of the quartet are used to leaning on each other. ‘When you spend a lot of time with four people, you develop something like a collective brain,’ jokes Wise. Throughout our interview, the three frequently finish each other’s train of thought – and even their sentences. ‘We spend more time with each other than with our partners,’ says Vriens, ‘It really is like a marriage. There are nice things about it, but also some struggles of course. You have to find a way to deal with each other every day, in every mood that comes along.’ The Quartet’s deep understanding of each other offers a kind of shorthand for problem-solving. Bergkotte recalls a friend’s suggestion that she join other orchestras and meet new people and her response: ‘But why? Then I don't know these people, I don't know how their mood is. With the Quartet I can tell exactly how their day is already and if I'm not well, I don't need to pretend.’ The players have a level of comfort with each other that can only come from years of friendship. Vriens points out, ‘We've shared so many things together in our personal lives, all the good things and the bad things that have happened the last few years, we know it all.’

Does this deep understanding of each other affect the Ragazze Quartet’s performance? Wise thinks so. ‘People experience our concerts differently because there's something in the personality that comes across. That's become richer throughout the years because we spend so much time together.’ As with any group, it’s not all sunshine and roses. ‘No job is always 100% amazing,’ admits Bergkotte, ‘There's always stuff that you don't want to do, but that's just what you have to do to make the other parts work.’ That sense of perspective seems to be key to the Quartet’s continuing cohesion both on and off the stage. Vriens talks about ‘the power of music’ in resolving instances when the group’s cohesion feels shaky. ‘On stage when we are giving a concert, we're giving it our all, whatever has happened previously. It’s a natural way of resolving things, just playing music together.’ Wise echoes this, ‘However many meetings you have had, the performance is a time when there is no speaking. Music is our only way of communication in that moment, and it can feel liberating.’ And while the members of Ragazze Quartet care deeply about one another, it is always the audience that comes first. ‘It's not their problem that we are tired, they just want a really nice evening and it’s our job to give them that.’ Bergkotte explains, ‘For that moment, that’s the most important thing and then after that we can crash, and we can complain. No matter how tired we are, everything falls into place. We can sleep when we’re old!’

Of course, the magic of performance can only stretch so far, and the group have in recent years taken on additional support in the form of a business manager, marketeer and support for dealing with the Quartet’s private sponsors, sales and concert bookings. As well as a sense of relief for Wise, Vriens and Bergkotte, it is their respect for these professions that shines through when they talk about the decision to take on extra help. Wise, who was for a while the Quartet’s booking manager, recalls: ‘I found that to do it properly, I needed so much time that I was always unhappy about how much I had done to do it. It is its own profession.’ Vriens adds, ‘Hiring these staff was so necessary for an organisation that is growing. We're also still musicians that need to practise and have space in our heads to think of all the things that we want to be doing.’

The Ragazze Quartet released its latest album Open Spaces with composer and violist Garth Knox in April this year. The release includes two world premiere recordings of Knox’s work and can be found here.