Cellist Beats Out 180 Applicants for Coveted Symphony Job

By David Ryan Alexander

What began with a simple "twinkle twinkle little star" has blossomed into a rare opportunity as a career cellist for young Richmond District resident Meeka Quan, who currently studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music and just received a prestigious position with the Utah Symphony.

"She deserves it she worked for it - her commitment and her work ethic sets her apart. She's really committed," said Richard Aaron, Quan's instructor at the Cleveland Institute for four years. "I could tell when she first played for me - I could really sense that she was going to be very successful. You can tell that she's a wonderful person. You can sense that in her music.

"I didn't know it was going to turn into a career," said Quan, who has loosely named her cello Chelios, after the Detroit Red Wings hockey player. "I didn't make that decision until I was 13."

But she began her studies much younger than that. At age four, her preschool music teacher introduced Quan to the cello. Within a couple years, Quan was participating in after-school programs and taking private cello lessons from instructor Beth Goldstein. Quan and Goldstein remain in contact to this day.

When Quan was 14 she was accepted to the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra out of Davies Hall.

Her father, Ray Quan, recalls: "When she was in high school, I picked her up from a friend's house and her friend was begging her to spend the night for a slumber party - but she said no, I've got a rehearsal and I've got to practice."

"People asked me throughout her life, how did I get her to practice," he said. "Well I can't tell you, because I never told her to go practice, it was just one of those things where a child finds out early on they've got a passion - it's not something you have to force them into."

At about this time, Fritz Maytag, the heir to Maytag and owner of Anchor Steam beer, contacted Quan. Maytag's sister had been a music teacher and when she passed away he commissioned a quartet of instruments from a maker to be loaned out to local students. Every Christmas or New Year's, Maytag hires Quan and the rest of the quartet to perform at an annual holiday party he holds in Sausalito.

In high school Quan was recruited by the San Francisco School of the Arts and began studying there. Outside of the four or five hours of cello practice each day, Quan also became notorious for always having a dense book with her - she just completed Tolstoy's "War and Peace." Shortly after beginning at the school, Quan told her father she wanted to audition for the Cleveland Institute of Music.

"I said, 'yeah that'll be good practice for when you're a senior,'" her father said. "But she was thinking, 'I'm not doing this for experience, I'm gonna get a position." '

Sure enough, Quan was accepted into the young artist program at the school and was one of only a handful of high school students that was accepted. She even arranged to complete her senior year of high school and first year of college simultaneously.

Quan soon graduated with a bachelor's degree and was working on completing a master's when she traveled in March to audition for the Utah Symphony.

Approximately 180 cellists auditioned for two positions. Of those auditioning, only 80 had been invited and Quan was not one of them due to her age and status. But she decided to audition anyway, ostensibly for the practice and to "show them what a mistake they made by not inviting me," she said.

At the end of the first day, the 180 cellists had been reduced to 12, which included Quan. On the second day, the 12 were narrowed to six, and then again to three, and Quan still remained in the competition. She gave a final performance, "and after what seemed to be an eternity, the judges made their decision and offered the position of associate principal cellist at the Utah Symphony," her father said proudly.

The judges for the audition sat behind a screen and laid out a rug so they would be unable to determine if the participant was a man or woman. Quan's father said that several of the judges were surprised by her youth when they finally met her. Quan just turned 21 last November.

Quan said it was to her advantage that she really saw the audition as a practice run.

"People can get really nervous and just blow it," she said. "But I had excellent training and worked really hard, and I really love what I do. I love music and I know I'm going to do it for the rest of my life, and it makes me happy. It makes me more happy than the fact that I'm going to get paid for it."

Although Quan still enjoys her share of the Dave Matthews Band, U2 and Eminem - "because I'm around classical 24/7 it's not the first thing I'll put on" - she still finds the most satisfaction playing classical music. Her current loves include Beethoven, Braun and Mozart.

Quan said that she talks with her father at times about how music has been such a narrow focus in her life, and she considers getting a degree in something else someday, but for her music, "I don't see ever stopping this," she said.