The Berkeley-based Real Vocal String Quartet is made up of four women whose music is hard to pigeonhole. You can hear the influence of jazz, classical, country, bluegrass, rock and more in their music. In addition, all of them sing, which is rare for string quartets.

The Real Vocal String Quartet wanders all over the musical map and all over the globe. They've just returned from a European tour -- part of the State Department’s American Music Abroad program with concerts in Azerbaijan, Latvia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lithuania.

They stopped by this week with their instruments: Irene Sazer and Alisa Rose on violin, Jessica Ivry on cello and Dina Maccabee on viola to talk with host Scott Shafer about their music and their month-long tour that ended this week.

SCOTT SHAFER: How did you study up before you left Dina? Did you learn about all of these countries and musical traditions?

DINA MACCABEE: We actually decided to arrange one traditional piece of music from each of the countries we were going to visit, so that we could perform it there and have that kind of bridge with our audiences in each country. So that was a real crash course. Once we found out where we were going, which wasn't in all that much advance, then we each took on one of these songs and brought it to the group. And so that meant learning how to sing a few words in Azeri and a few words in Macedonian language, so we definitely did our homework.

- See more at: http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201212211630/d#sthash.76W1Lury.dpuf