How did the Oceanus Quartet form? Why are we going to Taiwan?
The four of us met at New England Conservatory, and had all played with each other in various settings -- orchestra, other chamber groups inside and outside of school, etc. Our first performance as a quartet was actually a Groupmuse house concert! We were all friends, and all passionate about chamber music, so we talked with one another about forming a quartet and seeing what we could do with it.
The idea for a tour of Taiwan came up as great way to launch our quartet. Muchen and I played in a quartet together at NEC last year, and participated in a grant project called "Quartetutopia." The idea behind this project was that the string quartet could be used as a mobile, versatile ensemble to bring great classical repertoire to all kinds of settings and communities. We were inspired by this idea and began planning out a tour of Taiwan. Taiwan was a natural desination point for us as 3/4 of our group is Taiwanese. The three of them all had connection points back home for performance and teaching opportunties.
Taiwan also made sense to us as a place to tour because their music education scene doesn't have a lot of chamber music. There may be a few, high-priced professional quartet concerts a year from visiting artists, and maybe one quartet in a high school program that is put together for compeitions, but not the same focus on chamber music that the four of us experienced at NEC. We were excited by the idea of bringing our passion for quartet playing to Taiwanese students and audiences that may not have even had the chance to fall in love with it yet. NEC was excited by our idea too, and generously awared us a grant to make the tour happen!
When choosing our name, I initially thought about local Boston landmarks, like the fact that Boston sits by the ocean. I was also struck by the idea that oceans were historically the way different cultures found each other for the first time, and how music has similar powers of exploration and unification. For these reasons, for us as an international quartet, the name Oceanus seemed fitting.
We are excited for our first project as a quartet, and we hope you will follow us on our journey!
- Seth