Music and Migration is a collaborative program stemming from a deep friendship between the Aizuri Quartet and the Syrian-American clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh. All five of the artists have different personal relationships to and experiences of migration, as do their families. The music of this concert approaches the theme of migration in the broadest possible terms, as a physical journey and state of mind, and something that occurs both between and within countries.

Built around a new commission from the extraordinary composer and violinist Layale Chaker, this program includes three additional works (by Azmeh, Wang Lu and Michi Wiancko), wide-ranging in style and approach, commissioned by the Aizuri Quartet to respond to this theme. The music of the Armenian composer Komitas Vardapet and the American vocalist/composer/banjo and fiddle player Rhiannon Giddens expresses both the sorrow and resilience of peoples forcibly separated from their homelands and experiencing the horrors of genocide and slavery. Closing the program is the music of the Cuban-American saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Paquito D’Rivera, which beautifully straddles multiple cultures and musical traditions.