Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “brilliant” and “superb,” SAKURA Cello Quintet (Stella Cho, Michael Kaufman, Yoshika Masuda, Zachary Mowitz, and Peter Myers) explores great music of the past through dazzling arrangements on familiar works, and continually expands the five-cello repertoire through commissioning new works. The group’s name, SAKURA, is a tribute to their mentor, cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, whose name “Kirs(c)hbaum” translates into “cherry tree,” as does the Japanese word sakura. Their debut album brings together the best and most beloved cello arrangements from their wide-ranging collection of repertoire. The program spans centuries, from iconic film scores like John Williams’s Star Wars and Joe Hisaishi’s Howl’s Moving Castle, to the title selection by Debussy, to Renaissance madrigals by Orlando Gibbons and Carlo Gesualdo.