On campus music aficionados may already be familiar with Karen Lowe '10 and Joshua Chakoff '10, if not by name then by sound; the two musicians, as recipients of the Leonard Bernstein Scholarship (a prestigous award given to the school's best musicians), have been in the spotlight since 2007 when they first began performing at Brandeis with fellow LBS?recipient Yoon-Jin Kim '10. They recently gave e-mail interviews to the Justice.JustArts: I'm sure getting the LBS scholarship contributed to your choosing Brandeis. However, why did you choose to apply to Brandeis over a music school like Berklee?

Karen Lowe: I knew about Brandeis because my dad went here. When I was applying to schools, I knew that Brandeis would be a good fit for me in terms of location and size but also because it had strong academics outside of music. I wasn't sure if I even wanted to major in music when I got to school, and I wanted to make sure that I was going to a school that had other options. (Usually music schools have weak academics outside of strictly music classes.)

Joshua Chakoff: I actually had ruled out applying to conservatories a number of years before the college application process. I was always serious about music, attending music camps and devoting almost my entire weekend to violin in high school, but never felt that I wanted to dedicate my life to it. Dual-degree programs, such as the Juilliard-Columbia and Rochester-Eastman programs, briefly appealed to me, but I quickly realized that they were far too large of commitments, especially since I was fairly certain that I did not want to become a professional musician.

JA: How have your various study abroad plans affected your development as a group?

KL: I went abroad last semester to Buenos Aires, and so Josh and Yoon-Jin were in the chamber music class. Now that Yoon-Jin is abroad, Josh and I are playing together as a duo, and we are taking the class, too.

JC: While we haven't been together as a complete group since last spring, this time has allowed all of us to spend some time in the chamber music class, co-taught by Judy Eissenberg and Evan Hirsch. Since we had already been coached by all the Lydian String Quartet members other than Judy, it has been interesting to be coached by her, as well as by Evan, who especially helps because he is a pianist and is able to offer insight to some piano-specific issues that the quartet members cannot always comment on. When Karen was abroad in the fall, Yoon-Jin and I even played in separate groups, which was almost a shock to the system after exclusively playing with the same group for two years. Regularly playing in front of a class, and observing other groups perform and receive suggestions, is also a great experience that we were not able to get our first two years, since the chamber music component of the LBS program is structured as an independent study. I think that when we get back together in the fall, we will be a better group as a result even though we won't have played together for over a year.

JA: What's next for you guys, when Yoon-Jin returns from abroad? What direction do you think you'll take as a group during your senior year?

KL: I know that we were thinking about playing this beautiful Schoenberg, but it's not really meant for piano trio and I don't think it would be worth learning. Personally, I'd like to play [something] totally different than what we have played before, although the three of us always disagree on what we want to play.

JC: For each of the successive end-of-semester concerts during our first two years, it seemed like we were steadily growing a regular following. So I'm really hoping that we can maintain that momentum into next year! Though we haven't discussed our plans as a group that much, I am fairly certain we will continue to prepare a full program each semester.