The Miro Quartet, recognized as one of the best and brightest young string quartets in America, has been appointed Faculty String Quartet for The University of Texas at Austin. To give the group an identity that expresses its affiliation with the University of Texas, the College of Fine Arts asked the Department of Advertising to help re-brand the quartet. Dr. Neal Burn's Account Planning Class from the spring 2003 semester took on this endeavor.
The Miro Quartet was founded in 1995 and consists of violinists Daniel Ching and Sandy Yamamoto, violist John Largess, and cellist Joshua Gindele. They have been increasingly gaining attention and accolades since first winning First Prize at the 1998 Banff International String Quartet Competition. The Miro Quartet will teach violin, viola and cello to students at UT, coach music ensembles, and still tour internationally. They competed for this position against several other groups in order to become the official University of Texas String Quartet.
The Account Planning students worked in teams of four or five over the course of the semester to come up with the re-branding concepts for the Miro Quartet. The students received insight from the College of Fine Arts Dean Robert Freeman; Bruno Longarini, Director of PR for the College of Fine Arts; Professor Glenn Chandler, Director of the School of Music; and Professor Doug Dempster, Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts. The five teams then presented their ideas and work to the College of Fine Arts and other distinguished judges. The team whose work was selected as the basis of the re-branding campaign consisted of five first-year graduate students: Assaf Avni, Jun Chi, Dave Lawrence, Christi O'Connell, and Shawn Smith. The work was then art directed and produced by Sean Thompson of the Department of Advertising faculty. The work resulted in an advertisement that appeared in the Chamber Music America Directory, posters, and invitations.
The focus of this re-branding project was to express the idea that Texas Music is more than just country. They wanted to show that this world class music group comes from Texas and be able to have that University of Texas affiliation wherever they go around the country or the world. Dean Robert Freeman, of the School of Music, stated:
"String quartets in the world are normally thought to be largely for elitists, for that has been the tradition, since Haydn's time. But this is a new world in a new millennium. The beauties of Mozart, Bartok, Brahms, and Ravel have a potential positively to change human beings, all over the world, broadening demand for the music we all care so much about while transforming the ways in which people everywhere think of Texas - as a land of enthusiasm, openness, inclusiveness, and high aspiration."
1/7/2004