Celebrity Series • Aizuri Quartet • Debut Series

The string quartet has drawn praise both for bringing “a technical bravado and emotional power” to bold new commissions and for its “flawless” (San Diego Union-Tribune) performances of the great works of the past. Their innovative programming and the depth and fire of their performances have earned the quartet a Grand Prize at the 2018 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, along with top prizes at the 2017 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in Japan, the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition in London and, most notably, a 2019 Grammy nomination for their debut album Blueprinting, named one of NPR Music’s Best Classical Albums of 2018.

The Quartet, which draws its name from “aizuri-e,” a style of predominantly blue Japanese woodblock printing noted for its vibrancy and incredible detail, blends their four distinctive musical personalities into a powerful show-stopping performance.

The program—created to trace a journey from darkness to dawn—begins with Clara Schumann’s “Ich stand in dunklen Traumen” (“I stood in dark dreams”), followed by Bartok’s Quartet No. 4 and “Sivunittinni” by the Canadian Inuit composer and throat singer Tanya Tagaq, before concluding with Haydn’s “Sunrise” Quartet.