Pacific Quintet

Aliya Vodovozova [flute], Fernando Zavala [oboe], Haeree Yoo [French horn], Liana Leßmann [clarinet], Kenichi Furuya [bassoon],

This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.
–Leonard Bernstein

2nd prize and audience award winners of the international ARD Competition 2024, 1st prize winners of the “Ton & Erklärung 2021” (Sound & Explanation) Competition of the Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy and 2nd prize winners of the “Carl Nielsen International Chamber Music Competition 2019” in Copenhagen, the Pacific Quintet celebrated their debut concert in the Chamber Music all of the Philharmonie Berlin in 2019.

The Pacific Quintet met in 2017 at the Pacific Music Festival, founded by Leonard Bernstein in Sapporo, Japan.  Inspired by the passionate attention to music, the intercultural exchange and the respectful company with each other at the festival, the five musicians decided to carry Bernstein’s spirit to Europe and founded the Pacific Quintet in Berlin. Because its members hail from Honduras, Japan, Ukraine/ Turkey, South Korea and Germany, tolerance and inclusion is of utmost importance to the Pacific Quintet. This ensemble strives to use music as a means of communication in order to make the wealth of different cultures, origins and traditions visible to all, amidst a society in which fear of the foreign and blanket condemnation based on stereotypes are gaining more relevance again.

In addition to their dedication to chamber music, the musicians are currently performing with orchestras like the WDR-Sinfonieorchester, the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and the Bremer Philharmoniker. The members of the Pacific Quintet studied at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, the Hochschule für Musik “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” Leipzig as well as in the Karajan-Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Renowned artists such as Christian Wetzel, Nick Deutsch, Christian-Friedrich Dallmann and Wenzel Fuchs have supported the Ensemble with their guidance. The Pacific Quintet studied chamber music with Prof. Martin Spangenberg at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. The Pacific Quintet won in 2023 the NORDMETALL-Ensemble Prize of the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, after playing in their Concert Series “Young Elite”.

https://www.pacific-quintet.com/