Press Release: "A Civil Rights Reader for Strings, Laptop & DJ"

Media Contact: Diane Roby, RED Communications
(415) 931-5367, reddroby@earthlink.net

Photos available for direct download:
Daniel Bernard Roumain — http://dbrmusic.com/download.htm
Del Sol — http://www.delsolquartet.com/press.html

Other Minds presents Daniel Bernard Roumain performing
A Civil Rights Reader for Strings, Laptop & DJ
with Del Sol String Quartet and special guest DJ Scientific

Monday, March 6, 2006, 7:30pm
Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Center, 3200 California Street, San Francisco

San Francisco, February 1, 2006 — Hip-hop meets the string quartet as Other Minds presents an evening of cutting edge music-making with charismatic Haitian-American composer and classical violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain performing A Civil Rights Reader for Strings, Laptop & DJ in concert with the Del Sol String Quartet and DJ Scientific. The one-night-only concert of Roumain’s string quartets, performed together for the first time, is presented by Other Minds in association with the Eugene and Elinor Friend Center for the Arts and Sozo Media. The event is followed by a discussion onstage with Roumain and Charles Amirkhanian, Executive & Artistic Director of Other Minds. The concert is on Monday, March 6, 2006, at 7:30 pm at Kanbar Hall in the Jewish Community Center, 3200 California St., San Francisco. Tickets ($30 / $26 / $20) are available online at www.jccsf.org/tickets, or by calling the JCCSF Box Office at (415) 292-1233. The event is sponsored by historic Stewart Mineral Springs of Weed, CA, which will give away a weekend getaway for two to a lucky audience member. For further information, contact Other Minds at (415) 934-8134, www.otherminds.org.
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a pioneer in new musical forms who marries the instrumentation of string quartet with electric violin, laptop, and hip-hop turntablist. The Del Sol String Quartet reunite with Roumain, whose String Quartet No. 4 they premiered in a spellbinding performance at the 11th Other Minds Music Festival in March 2005. This first-ever performance of four of Roumain’s string quartets, A Civil Rights Reader, celebrates iconic figures of American Civil Rights to whom he dedicates each piece: Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and Maya Angelou.
“Daniel's music unites the best qualities of research and questioning with pure entertainment,” says Amirkhanian. “He's just the kind of breakthrough composer that Other Minds loves to champion. This really is ‘revelationary’ music that speaks to a wide audience, including more traditional classical fans. His obviously sympathetic chemistry with Del Sol has given him the best-ever performances of his string quartet pieces. And the musical portraiture of his Civil Rights heroes in each work contribute an added emotional layer of musical imagination.”
The program features the Del Sol String Quartet performing String Quartet No. 1, X (1993); String Quartet No. 2, King (2001); String Quartet No. 3, Powell (2003); and String Quartet No. 4, Angelou (2004) with electric violin and turntablist, which was commissioned by Other Minds and premiered at the 2005 Other Minds Festival. Roumain joins Del Sol on electric violin for String Quartet No. 2 and No. 4, with turntablist DJ Scientific.
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a composer, performer, violinist, and bandleader who seamlessly blends funk, rock, hip-hop and classical music into a new sonic vision. His dramatic soul-inspiring pieces range from orchestral scores to energetic chamber works to rock songs and electronica, all embracing modern musical genres woven with a multicolored spectrum of popular music. His music was chosen by The New York Times as the #3 Best Classical Moment of 2003, and is praised by classical and popular music critics alike. DBR has collaborated with Philip Glass, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Vernon Reid, DJs Radar, Spooky, and Scientific, Susan Sarandon, Cassandra Wilson, and an array of orchestras and chamber ensembles. His 9-piece band DBR & THE MISSION, features an amplified string quartet, drum kit, keyboards, vocalist, DJ, and laptopist. The Dallas, Memphis, San Antonio, and St. Louis orchestras have performed or commissioned his works. He is Music Director of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Assistant Composer-in-Residence of the Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL). DBR performed his arrangements of Cassandra Wilson's Glamoured with the jazz vocalist and her quintet while conducting the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Buffalo Philharmonic; rocked with DJ Spooky at the Lincoln Center Summer Festival; and composed music for and performed in the European premiere of Bill T. Jones' Another Evening at the RomaEuropa Festival in Italy. As Artist-in-Residence at Arizona State University, he performed ROCKESTRA:A Hip Hop Music and Dance Party featuring DJ Radar, and returned to collaborate with Philip Glass in SEEN AND HEARD:Philip Glass and Daniel Roumain Together on Screen, Stage and in Sound. Current projects include Vision Blinding for violin, video, and voice, his fourth evening-length solo show; 24 Bits: Hip Hop Studies and Etudes performed by DBR on piano and laptop; and the most recent Bill T. Jones/DBR collaboration, Blind Date, a large-scale work for multiple video installations, a classical violinist, two throat-singers, and the company. On March 17th, the American Composers Orchestra will premiere his Call Them All: Fantasy Projections for Film, Laptop and Orchestra at Zankel Hall in New York. For more information or to hear selections of his music, visit www.dbrmusic.com
Del Sol String Quartet — Kate Stenberg and Rick Shinozaki, violinists, Charlton Lee, violist, and Monica Smith, cellist — was honored recently with first prize in the 2006 ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming in the category of “mixed repertoire chamber groups.” Founded in 1992, the Del Sol String Quartet began in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts, followed by a residency at San Francisco State University in association with the Alexander String Quartet. In February 2005 Del Sol premiered the Other Minds-commissioned Quartet No. 4 of Daniel Bernard Roumain at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The success of the collaboration led to this effort to introduce more of Roumain’s works to San Francisco. Del Sol appears on programs presented by Other Minds, San Francisco Performances, Montalvo Arts Center, and Santa Fe New Music/Santa Fe Opera. Del Sol’s critically-acclaimed 2005 CD of the complete string quartet repertory of George Antheil (1900-1959) on the Other Minds label (OM 1008-2) is the definitive recording of these pieces and is available from the webstore at www.otherminds.org.
DJ Scientific (Chris Davis, originally of Oakland, CA), a seasoned producer, engineer, laptopist and DJ, attended the School of Audio Engineering in New York. He became prominent performing at New York clubs and social events. He has collaborated extensively with Daniel Bernard Roumain since 2003 as a member of DBR & THE MISSION, where he has helped develop a unique, amplified, hip-hop-inspired soundscape. DJ Scientific performed with Roumain and Del Sol at Other Minds 11 in 2005, and has performed with Roumain at numerous other venues, including The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He recently designed sound installations for the Studio Museum in Harlem, and founded a DJ collective, C.O.S. Productions.
Other Minds is a leading organization for new and experimental music in all its forms, devoted to championing the most original, eccentric, and underrepresented creative voices in contemporary music through the annual Other Minds Music Festival, the online new music archives at RadiOM.org, and the Other Minds Records label. The organization has just been awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s “Save America’s Treasures” program in the amount of $180,000 to continue digitizing audiotapes of interviews and music by leading composers of the 20th century recorded over a thirty-year period at KPFA Radio in Berkeley. In partnership with the Internet Archive, Other Minds is making the newly-digitized files available free for listening at www.radiOM.org. The 12th Other Minds Music Festival is scheduled for December 8-9, 2006, at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. Invited composers include Daniel David Feinsmith (San Francisco), Per Nørgård (Denmark), Peter Sculthorpe (Australia), Markus Stockhausen (Germany), and Maja Ratkje (Norway). Stay tuned for additional composers to be announced.
The March 6 concert is sponsored by historic Stewart Mineral Springs of Weed, near Mt. Shasta. At the concert, a lucky audience member can win a 2-night getaway at Stewart Mineral Springs’ newly remodeled Wellness Room Cabin (the first of its kind in Northern California). The winner will also have the opportunity to experience a mineral bath in the healing waters of the Springs, which will include relaxing in a woodstove-heated sauna. For more information on Stewart Mineral Springs, view www.stewartmineralsprings.com

— For more information, visit www.otherminds.org —