Sarajevo String Quartet

Today I went to a talk by Dijana Ihus, the violist for the Sarajevo String Quartet when the city was besieged for 3+ years in the 1990s. She told us how it was to live without electricity for two years, how they were expected to live on almost no food (one cup of oil, one cup of flour, and one cup of lentils per person per month), how they'd stand in line at 4 a.m. to get an onion, which they then had to share with the neighbors, how the first and second violinist were each randomly killed and had to be replaced. They did 206 concerts during the siege and were recognized internationally for their work to help the people stay sane and connected to civilization during a time when survival itself was so difficult. Now she's a professor at a teacher's college in Oregon.