The Girsky Quartet works with student chamber groups and performs Shostakovich’s second string quartet.

Bio:

The Girsky Quartet was formed in 2012 when Artur Girsky and Natasha Bazhanov (Seattle Symphony violinists), Julie Whitton (Seattle Symphony violist), and Rowena Hammill (Los Angeles Opera cellist) performed Shostakovich String Quartet no. 1 at Club Shostakovich in Seattle. Since then, the quartet has explored more Shostakovich quartets, as well as works by Beethoven, Schubert, Bartok, Prokofiev and Mendelssohn. Beginning in the 2015-16 season they embarked on the Vashon Beethoven Quartet Project, a chronological presentation of all the Beethoven masterworks in a lecture-recital format.

In 2017, violist Timothy Christie joined the group. The quartet is the resident ensemble for Vashon Chamber Music, the Bellingham Chamber Music Society, and in 2019, was guest quartet at the Walla Walla Music Festival.