The Aizuri Quartet: 2019 Grammy Nominees

The Aizuri Quartet has taken the classical music scene by storm, garnering top prizes at the prestigious M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition (2018) and receiving a Grammy nomination for their album, Blueprinting. 

Antonín Dvořák Selections from Cypresses

Lembit Beecher  These Memories May Be True

Rhiannon Giddens At the Purchaser’s Option

Jean Sibelius String Quartet,  “Voces Intimae”

Komitas Vartabed Armenian Folk Songs (selections)

Each selection  of the program is used to carefully  craft a heartfelt letter addressed to the space deeply nestled within our hearts, minds, and memories  we call “home.” Intimate love songs by Dvořák (arranged for string quartet) and the nostalgic, soulful folk songs by Armenian composer Komitas Vartabed serve as  bookends for the program, each containing a deep expression of homeland. Beecher’s These Memories May Be True was inspired by fragments of Estonian culture, songs and stories passed down to him by his grandmother that create, according to the composer, a “sense of something beautiful that has been lost in the wash of time.” Rhiannon Giddens depicts the  visceral tragedy of a young woman and her child being sold as slaves in her work “At the Purchaser’s Option,” and is juxtaposed by Sibelius’ expression of psychological anguish and longing for serenity in “Voces Intimae.”

Aizuri Quartet: Emma Frucht, violin • Miho Saegusa, violin • Ayane Kozasa, viola • Karen Ouzounizan, cello

Ticket Link: https://www.emeraldcitymusic.org/upcoming-shows/aizuri-quartet-seattle