Holes in the Floor

The cello quartet Holes in the Floor assembled at the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) under a shared vision: to explore and communicate the beauty and vitality of classical music through the voice of four cellos. Cellists Jonathan Butler, Eunghee Cho, Yejin Hong, and Joy Yanai have each built an international reputation winning major prizes at Amsterdam’s Cello Biënnale, Alice & Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition in Harbin, China, and the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Moscow, Russia. Through the New England Conservatory Entrepreneurial Musicianship Grant, Holes in the Floor commissioned colleagues of the conservatory to write two new cello quartets. The ensemble will perform the west coast premieres of these new commissions, as well as Suite No. 2 for Cello Quartet—inspired by the unaccompanied suites by J. S. Bach and described by its composer, Jeremy Crosmer: “too intricate to sight-read on the street, but at the same time they present that groovy, down-to-earth feel”—on their Old First Concerts debut. Among recently completed transcriptions of the beloved piano repertoire by the ensemble members and their close colleagues, Holes in the Floor will also present Laszlo Varga’s arrangement of J. S. Bach’s Ciaccona from Violin Partita No. 2 and Alexandre Tansman’s Deux mouvements pour quatour de violoncelles. Holes in the Floor will lead you on an aural voyage through cherished classics to hot off the press premieres with not one, but FOUR cellos!