about AREPO
AREPO, [AH-reh-poh] made up of cellist and vocalist Elizabeth Kate (she/her), guitarist Marco Slaviero (he/him), accordionist Noël Rubli (he/him), and clarinetist Madara Eleonora Mežale (she/her) formed as a contemporary music group in 2022. Though conventional in number, AREPO embraces their unconventionality in quartet instrumentation as they believe disruption to the expected is vital for the future of music. By breaking standard instrumentation, using their voices, their bodies, and playing works by composers of marginalized communities, AREPO aims to set a new standard for what a 21st century quartet concert can entail.
Hailing from the USA, Italy, Switzerland, and Latvia respectively, each member carries with them a cultural and musical history that enriches the ensemble. Our name derives from the ancient and enigmatic Sator’s square: five-letter words forming a palindromic phrase in the figure of a square. AREPO is the second word of the square and is a hapax in Latin literature, i.e., it does not appear in any other writing apart from this figure. It is a rare word with an aura of mystery, a malleable and multiform word. AREPO is a unique name that encapsulates infinite meanings; of this multitude, it forms its own identity.
© Ryan Bennett - Tiny Tempest Farm (WI, USA)
They have most recently completed a year-long commission project of four Scandinavian-based composers which premiered both in Oslo and in Zurich at RAUM236. AREPO was selected to be one of the Ensemble-in-Residence for the Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab which took place in June 2024 at the Yerkes Observatory (Wisconsin, USA). Their works range in genre from performative art, to classical contemporary, improvisation, and interdisciplinary music with media.
Their debut album, Listening Time by Ferdinand Schwarz—a 45-minute work based on just intonation—was released in March 2025 and was featured on Bandcamp’s “Best of Contemporary Classical: March 2025.” Looking ahead, Spring 2025 will see AREPO engaged with the U.S. premieres of new pieces by Arjan Singh Dogra and Harriet Steinke.
