ROCO says goodbye to the old and in with the (relatively) new in this concert celebrating musical innovation via the string quartet. Lombardini Sirmen’s Quartet, a work that helped to shape the string quartet genre alongside those of Haydn and Boccherini, is an incredible example of a rare 18th-century woman who was not only able to live independently as a professional musician, but who made an important impact on the genre through her work. Verdi’s String Quartet in E minor – his sole chamber work – praised for its tonal beauty, opens the concert. Richard Danielpour’s work, Addio, takes the innovation one step further, using the quartet as a metaphor for family and exploring concepts of distance, time, and saying goodbye.