As the Aizuri Quartet arrives at the Newport Classical festival, it finds itself at a turning point
Formed in 2012 by four young string players, the Aizuri Quartet quickly built a reputation for its dynamic playing style and venturesome programming, and later for its relationships with composers such as Caroline Shaw. In the four years since the Globe last checked in with the Aizuri, the quartet, which performs at the Newport Classical festival tonight, has matured and refined its musical approach, deepening the qualities that initially made it worth hearing and following.
“I feel like we’ve been able to reach new heights together,” said violinist Miho Saegusa, one of the Aizuri’s founders, about the quartet’s recent artistic growth. “Both in our playing, the comfort that we’ve found, the spontaneity that we found in our performances, and the kind of programming that the quartet now really identifies with.”
Their projects thrive on a creative mix of works of different eras and sonic approaches. Take, as an example, a sunrise-themed program that opens with an arrangement of the Clara Schumann song “Ich stand in dunkeln träumen” (“I stood, darkly dreaming”) and moves through night-haunted works by Bartok (the Fourth String Quartet) and the Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq. Ending the concert with Haydn’s “Sunrise” Quartet allows the piece to sound fresh and emerge differently than it would if it were at the concert’s beginning, where the composer is almost always found. (Newport audiences will hear a modified version of this program.)
“We love having a balance of new and old on our programs,” said violinist Emma Frucht, who joined the Aizrui in 2019, “because we think it just creates a really compelling dialogue that brings out facets of canon works that you might not notice otherwise.”
These qualities are fully on display in its recently released second album. “Earthdrawn Skies” yokes together arrangements of music by Hildegard von Bingen and the Armenian musicologist and composer Komitas, a mercurial quartet by the Jamaican-born composer Eleanor Alberga, and the quartet that Sibelius named “Voces Intimae” (“Intimate Voices”).
Frucht pointed out that all four works explore connections with the natural world: “soil, and space, and everything in between. Everything that makes us human and makes the world run.” But the album works just as well as a skillfully plotted sequence of emotions and musical languages, with a host of intriguing connections among the works, so that it’s also a story of “what makes the Aizuri Quartet the Aizuri Quartet,” she said.
As much as it has gone from strength to strength, the Aizuri is also confronting a time of upheaval. The two other members, violist Ayane Kozasa and cellist Karen Ouzounian, are both planning to leave the quartet by the end of the summer — Kozasa for a teaching job in Cincinnati and Ouzounian to focus on solo work and other projects. The Newport gig will be Ouzounian’s final performance with the Aizuri.
Personnel changes are nothing new, of course; not for quartets in general and not for the Aizuri. Virtually all groups that survive to a certain age undergo significant turnover along the way. But replacing half of a foursome at one go is a daunting prospect for any quartet, particularly one at the start of its second decade. Both Saegusa and Frucht admitted that, faced with that level of change, they wondered whether it was worth continuing with the quartet at all.
“When it first came about, Emma and I went through a lot of different emotions,” said Saegusa. “Until we said, ‘OK, we’re gonna do this,’ there was a fair amount of time where I, at least, went back and forth.”
Searching for new members “takes so much sacrifice and so much extra energy” on top of the day-to-day administrative work that running an ensemble requires, Frucht added. “One big question we were asking ourselves when we were trying to figure out what the future of the quartet would look like is, do we believe in the future of this group?”
Having committed to going forward, the quartet is continuing to tour through the summer, with a substitute violist and cellist. The two violinists have spent the last few months “reading with a lot of amazing players,” said Frucht. They hope to make a decision by the end of the summer and have the new lineup in place to begin concerts again at the beginning of September. They are already thinking ahead to future projects — more recordings, more commissions, perhaps a residency.
And they’re acutely aware that the quartet may be something different than it’s been in the past. “It’s a quick turnaround for everything,” said Frucht, “but we’re really excited about the new energy and the new opportunities that come with transition.” Added Saegusa: “One big piece of advice that we received from a lot of our mentors is, don’t think about recreating what you’ve had.
“It’ll be exciting, when we’re four members again, to kind of launch into those discussions together,” she continued, “and to have the meetings where we can talk and brainstorm and dream.”