Winners of the 2022 Cleveland Quartet Award, the Aizuri Quartet were featured in our 2020 Blue Hill Concert Association season. Violinists Emmas Frucht and Miho Saegusa make a return trip to Blue Hill, joined by new quartet members Brian Hong, viola, and Caleb van der Swaagh, cello. NPR Music said of the quartet’s 2023 album, Earthdrawn Skies, featuring music of Hildegard of Bingen, Komitas Vartapet, Eleanor Alberga, and Jean Sibelius, that it “convincingly connects the dots in wildly diverse music stretching over eight centuries … arousing solemn contemplation, cosmic curiosity, folksy delight and introspective scrutiny.”
The Aizuri Quartet will perform at the Blue Hill Congregational Church on January 26, 2025, at 3:00 pm. You may sample their music by clicking on the video links below: (1) the fifth movement, “Allegro Molto,” of Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4 and (2) Armenian Folk Songs by Komitas.