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)
Their first major project, a year-long commission of four Scandinavian-based composers with premieres in Oslo and Zurich at RAUM236, laid the foundation for AREPO’s mission: to build new works across borders and expand the possibilities of contemporary music. Since then, they have remained actively engaged in commissioning and performing new music, including their debut album Listening Time by Ferdinand Schwarz—a 45-minute work based on just intonation—released in March 2025 and featured on Bandcamp’s “Best of Contemporary Classical: March 2025.”
In the 2025–26 season, AREPO serves as ensemble-in-residence for the Manhattan School of Music composition program, is the featured ensemble for the NMK concert series in Oslo, and have additional performances at Oberlin Conservatory and the Chicago Athenaeum. Previously, they were selected as one of the Ensembles-in-Residence at the Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab in June 2024, held at the Yerkes Observatory (Wisconsin, USA). For AREPO, the quartet is not just a format but a living experiment—one that continues to challenge tradition, cross borders, and amplify new voices shaping the sound of our time.
