Del Sol in the Press

A Wreck that Soars

2008-04-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

by Rita Felciano
Posted on 4/12/08 on danceviewtimes.com

Gimmicks are all the rage these days. The idea of pulling the members of a string quartet out of their chairs to have them interact with dancers sounded like a clever marketing device but not something one necessarily wanted to see. In fact “StringWreck,” the collaboration between Janice Garrett & Dancers and the Del Sol String Quartet turned out to be a deliciously entertaining, slightly wacky evening of music and dance that could charm a turnip. Collaborating choreographers Garrett and her partner Charles Moulton set the tone but its blithe spirit floated on Del Sol’s exceptionally rich musical choices.

Entire article

Review: Garrett dancers with Del Sol Quartet

2008-04-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

Rachel Howard, Chronicle Dance Correspondent
San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday, April 12, 2008

Within minutes of the start of Janice Garrett & Dancers' new "StringWreck," one dancer has wrestled an actual violinist, precious instrument in hand, to the floor while another dancer is pulling the violist's hair while he plays on. But that's only the most flamboyant way the hourlong work, which opened Thursday and repeats tonight and Sunday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, moves a step beyond most collaborations between dance and music.

The dance - a team effort of Garrett, fellow choreographer Charles Moulton and the Del Sol String Quartet - is a delight from start to finish. It takes what could have been a merely cute, contrived concept - dancers and musicians collide - and shapes from it a continually thoughtful, surprising and even touching journey.

Entire article

Culture Clash: Janice Garrett & Dancers and Del Sol String Quartet Mix It Up

2008-04-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

by Jean Schiffman

San Francisco Arts Monthly, April 2008 Vol. 19 No.9

A rehearsal for Janice Garrett & Dancers' upcoming premiere, "StringWreck," is underway in the Margaret Jenkins studio. Outside, it is a blustery evening; inside, the energy is electric. The dancers, two men and two women, are warming up. Only two of the musicians comprising the Del Sol String Quartet are here tonight, but ultimately all four will perform—not just playing the music but physically interacting with the dancers.

The section that Janice Garrett and co-choreographer Charles Moulton are working on is set to "Eine kleine Nachtmusik," one of 15 pieces selected from among Del Sol's repertory of about 150, most of them by contemporary composers. Tonight, Del Sol founder Charlton Lee is It. The dancers swing him like a battering ram, leap over his shoulder, lift his legs, turn him around, carry him in a stiff standing position, swirl around him like dervishes. Throughout, Lee gamely tries to play his violin (in performance, he'll play the viola) while violinist Rick Shinozaki accompanies him from the sidelines. When Lee's bow arm is obstructed, he plucks helplessly at the strings. In performance, musicians will be tossed in the air with great abandon. Dancers will fall under the spell of the musicians' shifting tempos, morph into music stands that fly off with the sheet music. Lee will plummet through space, be dragged belly-down across the floor, playing all the while.

"We're exploring the interface between musicians and dancers," explains Garrett. "What can they do in common, where can they function together, where can't they? How do they co-exist? Where are the points of friction, tension, compatibility, harmony? And how do we weave a piece that moves through those variable landscapes of what all human interactions and relationships move through?"

Entire, original article

Joyous Eclecticism

2008-02-01T08:33:00.000-08:00

In the San Francisco Classical Voice, 1/29/08 ...

By Michelle Dulak Thomson

In a Bay Area music scene crammed full of resolute, relentless eclectics, the Del Sol Quartet stands out less for packing bewilderingly various elements into its programs than for doing it with such ease and stylishness. The Del Sols’ grand mélange of a recital Tuesday night, courtesy of Berkeley Chamber Performances, reprised its Old First Concerts program of a couple months back.

For a packed audience in the ballroom of the Berkeley City Club (more chairs were needed, and obtained), the ensemble and two guests, clarinetist Jeff Anderle and didgeridoo player Stephen Kent, presented a quartet of pieces divided by wild extremes of geography and united by the intensity of their colors and the vividness of their gestures.

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Del Sol Quartet Wins CMA/ASCAP Award

2007-12-19T11:58:00.001-08:00

For Immediate Release December 18th, 2007

Del Sol Quartet Wins CMA/ASCAP Award
for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music
First Prize, Ensemble-Mixed Repertory

Given annually, the award recognizes ensembles, presenters and festivals that have demonstrated extraordinary commitment to 20th- and 21st-century music, especially works written in the past 25 years. In addition to considering originality, the independent panel of judges looked for innovative presentation and audience-development strategies. The prizes will be given out at the Chamber Music America National Conference in New York City on January 5, 2008, which will be CMA’s 30th Anniversary. The awards are given jointly by Chamber Music America and ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers).

This marks the second time San Francisco-based Del Sol Quartet has received this award. Through collaborations with other artists Del Sol consistently has sought to expand the role of the string quartet beyond traditional classical chamber music. In July 2007 Del Sol performed Tan Dun’s “Ghost Opera” at the Santa Fe Opera’s new music series with Wu Man, pipa soloist. In this performance, the Quartet members integrated their string playing with additional vocal and percussion roles while moving around onstage, all within a full-scale operatic production. The Quartet plans to explore multimedia collaborations further in the current 2007-08 season, including upcoming performances of “String Wreck” with choreographer Charles Moulton and the Janice Garrett Dance Company in April 2008 and “Divide Light,” a new operetta by composer Thomas Edward Morgan and visual artist Lesley Dill, based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson, to be presented by Montalvo Arts Center in August 2008.

Del Sol's groundbreaking performance with hip-hop inspired composer/violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain of his complete string quartets was featured nationally on the CBS Evening News. During the spring of 2006 the quartet also partnered with composers Duo Huang, Kui Dong and Melody of China, the Bay Area's internationally acclaimed traditional Chinese music ensemble, to perform new works written for the combination of Chinese instruments and string quartet. In their previous season Del Sol collaborated with Hyo-Shin Na and five other contemporary women composers from Korea, premiering their work in Seoul and San Francisco.

At a recent concert at the Library of Congress, the Del Sol Quartet, praised by critics as “emotionally riveting,” “immediately engrossing and consuming,” "first rate,” and “taut and propulsive,” premiered a work by Grawemeyer Award-winning composer, Chinary Ung, commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation, plus works by Kui Dong, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Peter Sculthorpe’s Quartet no.16 for string quartet and didgeridoo.

The members of the Del Sol String Quartet are Kate Stenberg and Rick Shinozaki, violinists, Charlton Lee, violist, and Hannah Addario-Berry, cellist. The quartet began at the renowned Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, after which it was awarded a residency at San Francisco State University in association with the Alexander String Quartet. www.delsolquartet.com
______________________________________________________________________________
For all Booking and PR: Contact Peter Robles at probles@seriousmusicmedia.com 646-386-7057

Umbilical Chords: Women Composers and the Creative Process

2007-05-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

The Del Sol String Quartet premieres a retrospective of music composed by and about women from the past 111 years.

May 27 (Point Reyes Station)
May 30 (Berkeley)
May 31 (San Jose)
June 3 (San Francisco)

Click here for a PDF of the full press release.

References in Feb. '07 Chamber Music

2007-03-22T18:38:00.000-07:00

Del Sol is mentioned three times in the February 2007 issue (Vol. 24, No. 1) of Chamber Music magazine.

"A Midwestern Modernist" by James M. Keller, an article about Ruth Crawford Seeger
p. 67 talks about Crawford's String Quartet 1931, Andante movement as
“one I would recommend wholeheartedly is provided by the Del Sol String Quartet, a San Francisco foursome steeped in bravery and imagination.” He refers to Tear as “the group’s mind-expanding sampler CD.” He goes on to describe how Del Sol plays the movement faster than “any of the competition; ... [which] allows for a more fluid fluctuation among the constant waxing and waning of the four instruments...[T]he Del Sols’ result is grippingly otherworldly rather than just scrawny, and their ghostly timbre is abetted by an unusually vivid recorded acoustic. I hope we may look forward to their recording of this work in its entirety.”

p. 63, picture of Tear CD jacket
Click here for more info on Tear

"The Kronos Tradition" by Frank Otieri, p. 41
"In today's chamber music landscape — where quartets ranging from the Cassatt, Del Sol[emphasis added], Lark and Pacifica to genre-defying ensembles such as Ethel and Invert perform new music extensively and in some cases exclusively — it's difficult to remember the pre-Kronos idea of what a string quartet was or could be."

American Red Carpet for Foreign Composers

2006-12-18T13:13:00.000-08:00

By Paul Hertelendy
artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
Week of Dec. 11-18, 2006, Vol. 9, No. 41

Didgedo? Didn’t you do?
No, no, it's didjeridu, my favorite-name instrument, brought up to us from Down Under by one of the grand masters, composer Peter Sculthrope.
...

Stephen Kent played three didjeridus, with different pitches. He collaborated marvelously with the West Coast’s Del Sol String Quartet that has long championed modern music and done it stylishly, evocatively. [emphasis added]

...

Original article

Press Release: Del Sol String Quartet's fall season

2006-10-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

Announcing the Del Sol String Quartet's fall season:

"Premieres Without Borders"
(Nov. 5-10 in Point Reyes, Berkeley, Mountain View, and San Francisco)

Festival of New American Music "Four Seasons Concert" with the Melody of China
(November 11 at California State University, Sacramento)

"Concerts4Kids" (November 12 in Mountain View)

Click here to view the PDF of the press release.

Five Alive

2006-10-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

In the San Francisco Classical Voice ...

By Mark Alburger

This being the Halloween season, you could say there were two extra guest artists featured with the Del Sol String Quartet on Sunday at St. Kevin's Church in San Francisco. There was the renowned guest-in-residence Joan Jeanrenaud, who was also the founding cellist with the Kronos Quartet. But the works by the other "collaborators" — Franz Schubert (1797-1828) and Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964) — were played so well the composers seemed to have risen from the dead. And Hyo-shin Na's howling treat Song of the Beggars highlighted the innovative tricks of the other works on the program.

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Del Sol's Rich Thrift

2006-08-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

In the San Francisco Classical Voice

By Janos Gereben

Money, to be sure, is important — especially if you don't have it — but it's no substitute for brains and guts in musical leadership. Big budgets do not equal high standards of programming excitement and excellence. As reported here last week, small, "regional," fiscally constrained California Symphony, on a budget of $1.65 million, is offering more American and commissioned works than mighty San Francisco Symphony, with its $56 million annual budget. The good folks in Davies Symphony Hall may be playing better than ever, and serving hundreds of thousands of "mainstream" listeners well, but a season of six American works from a major American orchestra? Tsk, tsk.

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Review: Roumain's String Quartet #4 at Other Minds 11. Feb. 24-26, 2005

2006-08-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

Roumain's String Quartet #4 at Other Minds 11.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco.
February 24-26, 2005.

"Alone in the first movement, the Del Sol String Quartet revealed itself to be an enthusiastically expressive ensemble, able to play in confident points of imitation across rhythms increasingly complicated both for the performers counting cues and listeners keeping track of the music's hurtling sense of melodic and rhythmic accumulation."

Musicworks #92 Summer 2005, page 48

Press Release: "Four Seasons" concert

2006-05-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Hong Wang
Melody of China
415-681-8599
http://www.melodyofchina.com
info@melodyofchina.com

San Francisco, CA – Chinese music ensemble Melody of China presents its Four Seasons concert series in which they collaborate with the vibrant, acclaimed Del Sol String Quartet. The two groups will perform an exciting fusion of eastern and western traditions, featuring two new commissioned works for the combined musicians as well as John Cage’s 1950 masterpiece for quartet (based on the seasons), Yuanlin Chen’s Two Prose Poems, and traditional Chinese music. World premieres in this concert series are Kui Dong’s Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter suite, Bay Area composer Duo Huang’s Deep Mountains, and Dawei Wang’s “Jasmine Flower.”

The Four Seasons concert series continues in June:

8:00 PM, Friday June 2nd, 2006
St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley
Tickets: $20 general, $15 seniors (65 and older), $15 students
(415) 508-5799, www.melodyofchina.com/tickets.html

8:00 PM, Saturday, June 10th, 2006.
Old First Church, 1751 Sacramento Street, San Francisco
Tickets: $15 general, $12 seniors (65 and older), $12 students
Box office: (415) 474-1608
http://www.oldfirstconcerts.org/calendar.html

Composer Kui Dong was born in Beijing, China and received B.A. and M.A. degrees in theory and composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In 1991 she moved to the United States, where she obtained a Ph.D. in composition from Stanford University. Since 2003, she has been an associate professor of music at Dartmouth College. Kui Dong's compositions span diverse genres and styles and include ballet, orchestral and chamber works, chorus, electro-acoustic music, film scores and multi-media art. While studying at the Central Conservatory in Beijing, she studied Western classical and early contemporary music, Chinese classical and folk music, and produced a number of chamber and orchestral compositions. She has received numerous honors and awards including the 2001 ISCM international composition prize, a Rockefeller Bellagio Residency and residency at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program.

Duo Huang was born in Hunan, China. At a very young age, he worked as a pianist and composer in The Song & Dance Troupe of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. He was later accepted by Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Twice recipient of the prestigious “Sheng Xing Gong” award, Huang graduated with first class honors and received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in composition in 1989. From 1982-1992, Huang produced numerous works including a three-act ballet for orchestra, as well as film scores and commercials for major television stations and broadcasting companies across the country. He also freelanced as a performer with symphony orchestras in Beijing. Since 1995, he has worked as a software engineer in San Mateo and has continued to compose and perform with Melody of China and other musicians.

Dawei Wang has composed orchestra music, songs, and Chinese traditional dance music. Many of his musical compositions are used as music text material for colleges and universities throughout China, particularly in the Shanghai area. His world premiere, Jasmine Flower, is a quartet for four Chinese instruments, based on a very popular folk song from Jiangsu Province. Wang is currently a resident composer, the music director of Melody of China, Los Angeles branch, and is a member of the China Musician Association, Shanghai branch. At age 18 Wang began to compose and conduct orchestra. Wang attended the Music School of Shanghai Teachers University, and from 1982-1989 was the Director of Music Education & Research Center in Shanghai College of Education.

Del Sol String Quartet was awarded First Prize for Adventurous Programming (Mixed Repertory) by ASCAP/Chamber Music America in January 2006. Founded in 1992 during a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts (Alberta, Canada), Del Sol focuses on performance of new chamber music and lesser known 20th century works, collaborates with many living composers, and presents a home season of its own concerts in the Bay Area. Del Sol also actively tours and conducts educational outreach activities at schools and universities in the Bay Area and elsewhere – all in an effort to continually reach new audiences. Del Sol recently was featured with hip-hop violinist/composer Daniel Bernard Roumain on the CBS Evening News with Bob Schieffer.

Melody of China is a Chinese music ensemble based in the San Francisco Bay Area, formed in 1993 by a group of enthusiastic professional musicians from some of the most prestigious music conservatories in China. The ensemble has a twofold mission: to promote Chinese classical, folk and contemporary music, and to provide quality entertainment through the synergy between an ancient cultural tradition and the youthful, multicolored American culture. The group performs regular concerts and presents a variety of educational programs for local schools and the community.

The Four Seasons concert series is supported in part by grants from the National Endowment For The Arts, the James Irvine Foundation, Meet the Composer (Commissioning Music/USA Fund), Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, San Francisco Arts Commission, and the Zellerbach Family Fund.

###

Press Release: "Northernn Lights"

2006-04-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

"Northern Lights" -- A Tribute to Canadian Composers by the Del Sol String Quartet

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Kate Stenberg
Del Sol String Quartet
415-665-7847
http://www.delsolquartet.com/
kate@delsolquartet.com

San Francisco, CA -- Del Sol String Quartet (DSSQ) will showcase four of the most innovative living composers from Canada in the next concert of the Del Sol Performing Arts Organization’s Home Season. At the upcoming "Northern Lights” concert, DSSQ will perform the world premiere of String Quartet No. 2, "Nostalgia" (2002/2006), by Ronald Bruce Smith (b. 1961, Canada). The performance also includes “As You Pass A Reflective Surface” (1991) by Linda Catlin Smith (b. 1957, USA), String Quartet No. 3 (1981) by R. Murray Schafer (b. 1933, Canada), and “Spanish Garland --12 Folk Melodies from Spain” (1993) by José Evangelista (b. 1943, Spain).

DSSQ will perform this repertoire in four concerts across the Bay Area.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006, at 8:00pm - Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley.
Thursday, May 25th, at 7:00pm - Tateuchi Hall, Finn Center, 230 San Antonio Cir., Mountain View.
Friday, May 26th, at 8:00pm - the Green Room of the SF War Memorial, 401 Van Ness Ave.,San Francisco.
Sunday, May 28th, at 4:00pm - the Dance Palace, 5th and B Streets, Point Reyes Station.

Tickets for each performance are available at the door: $20/$15 seniors/$7 students.

In January 2006 DSSQ was awarded First Prize for Adventurous Programming (Mixed Repertory) by ASCAP/Chamber Music America. Founded in 1992 during a residency at the Canadian artists' retreat, Banff Centre for the Arts, DSSQ specializes in music of the Americas and recently was featured with hip-hop violinist/composer Daniel Bernard Roumain on the CBS Evening News with Bob Schieffer.

Ronald Bruce Smith's evocative music is based on mathematical principles but is full of emotional depth and is as exquisitely wrought as a maple leaf. Smith's music often has a contemplative character, a preoccupation with enhancing the resonance of a given ensemble and an openness to new sound sources. Although DSSQ has played two of the movements of this work previously, this performance marks the world premiere of the entire four-movement composition.

Linda Catlin Smith's "As You Pass A Reflective Surface" (1991) uses notes sparingly to create a shimmering, ethereal space. She writes, "I want to make time larger than it is, as though the listener is examining something up close --closer than a usual perspective . . . an intimate perspective."

R. Murray Schafer is known as the writer of books on the world soundscape and its evolution. His String Quartet No. 3 (1981) is a four-movement essay of surpassing complexity.

José Evangelista, a composer, computer scientist and physicist born in Valencia, Spain, has resided for over thirty years in Montréal and often incorporates traditional ethnic music into his work. His "Spanish Garland" treats twelve different folk melodies from Spain in an inventive and whirlwind tour de force.

For information: http://www.delsolquartet.com/ or
Contact: kate@delsolquartet.com
Phone: 415-665-7847

# # #

PSA Request
For Immediate Release: April 4, 2006
Contact: Kate Stenberg
415-665-7847, kate@delsolquartet.com

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT REQUEST

EVENT: "NORTHERN LIGHTS” – A TRIBUTE TO CANADIAN COMPOSERS

EVENT DATE: WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2006, 8 PM
EVENT LOCATION: ASHBY STAGE, 1901 ASHBY AVE, BERKELEY, CA

EVENT DATE: THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2006, 7 PM
EVENT LOCATION: TATEUCHI HALL. FINN CENTER. 230 SAN ANTONIO CIRCLE,
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA

EVENT DATE: EVENT DATE: FRIDAY, MAY 26, 2006, 8 PM
EVENT LOCATION: GREEN ROOM OF THE SF WAR MEMORIAL, 401 VAN NESS AVE.,
SAN FRANCISCO, CA

EVENT DATE: SUNDAY, MAY 28, 2006, 4 PM
EVENT LOCATION: DANCE PALACE, 5TH AND B STREETS, POINT REYES STATION, CA

15 SECONDS:

DEL SOL STRING QUARTET WILL SHOWCASE FOUR OF THE MOST INNOVATIVE LIVING COMPOSERS FROM CANADA: R. MURRAY SCHAFER, JOSÉ EVANGELISTA, RONALD BRUCE SMITH, AND LINDA CATLIN SMITH. WEDNESDAY, MAY 24TH, THROUGH SUNDAY, MAY 28TH AT VARIOUS VENUES IN THE BAY AREA.

VISIT DELSOLQUARTET.COM OR CALL 415-665-7847 FOR MORE INFORMATION.

# # # #

Founded in 1992, the Del Sol String Quartet specializes in music of the Americas. The Del Sol Performing Arts Organization brings chamber music to the general public through the Quartet’s concert performances, educational and community outreach programs, composer retrospectives, commissioning of new works, and recordings.

Chinary Ung Receives Koussevitzky Commission for New Del Sol Piece

2006-04-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Library of Congress Koussevitzky Foundation Announces 2005 Commission Winners

The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation Inc. have awarded commissions for new musical works to nine composers. The commissions are granted jointly by the foundations and the performing organizations that will present the newly composed works.

...

Chinary Ung will write a new work for the San Francisco-based Del Sol String Quartet. This marks the third Koussevitzky award for Ung, whose earlier commissions were for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble ("Mohori," 1973) and for wind quintet ("Spiral VII," 1994). Born in Cambodia, Ung came to the United States in 1964 to attend the Manhattan School of Music, where he received degrees in clarinet performance before earning his doctorate in composition at Columbia University. In 1989 he became the first American to win the coveted Grawemeyer Award for his "Inner Voices," commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Published exclusively by C.F. Peters, his music is recorded on the CRI, New World and Argo labels. Ung is professor of composition at the University of California, San Diego.

Original article

Antheil: Quartets

2006-04-01T11:58:00.000-08:00

by Elaine Fine, American Record Guide, March/April 2006

... The Del Sol Quartet is a young ensemble from San Francisco. It is clear that Antheil's music speaks to them, and they seem to understand it thoroughly. After decades of people trying to understand what Antheil was all about, this quartet is able to 'hear' his visionary voice very clearly, and now we can too....

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

2006-02-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

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 —

Del Sol Quartet on Top

2006-01-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

in San Francisco Classical Voice, Music Reviews

by Janos Gereben

San Francisco's Del Sol Quartet has been named the year's winner of the Chamber Ensemble/Mixed Repertory category for 2005-2006 by Chamber Music America and ASCAP. The quartet's Kate Stenberg, Rick Shinozaki, Charlton Lee, and Monica Scott have been much in the news lately, especially with their release of the complete string quartet repertory of George Antheil on the Other Minds label, which was nominated for a Grammy. As reported in Music News, the quartet has also engaged in an extensive exchange program, both touring Korea and sponsoring concerts here of musicians from Korea (under the title of "Del Seoul," har, har).

Del Sol's new award will be given at CMA's 28th annual national conference ("Chart Your Course: Navigating in an Unpredictable Culture") in New York City, January 12-15. The quartet will perform at the conference, as well. Among the other local winners is Babatunde Lea of Vallejo in the jazz ensembles category. For the first time, the recipient of the CMA's highest honor, the Richard J. Bogomolny Service Award, is a jazz artist: Billy Taylor, pianist, educator, TV and radio host, member of the National Council on the Arts, Kennedy Center Artistic Advisor for Jazz, and recipient of major honors, including the National Medal of Arts.

Original article

Press Release: "Del Seoul"

2005-11-01T13:36:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release: Del Sol contact: Dominique Pelletey
November 1st, 2005 (510) 595-8448
dominique@delsolquartet.com

The Del Sol String Quartet proudly presents the works of six Korean women in a concert featuring chamber music for string quartet and piano. Joined by Swiss pianist, Eva-Maria Zimmerman, Del Sol String Quartet recently traveled to Seoul, Korea, for an intensive meeting with all six composers, working towards an intimate understanding of the musical language and unique melding of the traditions of Eastern and Western music.

Alive with the captivating rhythms of traditional Korean folk music, and a subtle use of typical scale patterns, the six works as a whole present a varied and encompassing view of modern Korean artistry.

The program progresses from the eloquently romantic works of Kyung-Won Lee and Sa-Eun Hong for piano trio and viola/piano duo respectively, to the evocative, almost mystical sounds of San Francisco-based Hyo-Shin Na’s string quartet. Ok-shik Shim, also currently residing in the United States, provides a delightful, up-beat, jazzy side to the program in her piano quintet (based entirely on an ancient, traditional melody), while the two other string quartets span the area between contemplative beauty (Hye-Rie Han) and shimmering complexity (Hae-Sung Lee). The Del Sol offers a rich and diverse sound palette, hailed by Korean audiences as “ideally suited and authentic.”

Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - 12noon
Program: Hyo-shin Na
Koret Auditorium at San Francisco Main Public Library.
100 Larkin Street (@Grove), Civic Center, San Francisco

Friday, December 9, 2005 - 8pm
Program: Han Hye Rie, Lee Kyungwon, Lee Hae-Sung, Na Hyo-shin, Hong Sa-eun, Shim Okshik
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts - Forum
701 Mission Street (@ 3rd), San Francisco
Tickets: $20 general l $15 seniors l $7 students, kids

Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 4pm
Program: Han Hye Rie, Lee Kyungwon, Lee Hae-Sung, Na Hyo-shin, Hong Sa-eun, Shim Okshik
DANCE PALACE, 503 B Street, Point Reyes Station
Tickets: $20 general l $15 seniors l $7 students, kids
(Dance Palace members: $15/$13 seniors /$7 kids)
PROGRAM
1. Han Hye Rie: Towards you for string quartet
2. Lee Kyungwon: The Recollections for for Violin, Cello and Piano
3. Lee Hae-Sung: Bium II (Emptiness II) for string quartet

Intermission

4. Na Hyo-shin: Fixed Stars for string quartet
5. Hong Sa-eun: Ballade for viola and piano
6. Shim Okshik: Song of Mongkeumpo for piano quintet

world premiere
All the works were composed in 2005 for the Del Sol String Quartet.
Fixed Stars was written with support from the Zellerbach Family Fund and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Del Sol String Quartet

Rick Shinozaki, and Kate Stenberg violinists
Charlton Lee, violist
Monica Scott, cellist

The dynamic Del Sol String Quartet rose to international attention with the release of its 2002 CD, Tear, which earned the vibrant ensemble accolades including "emotionally riveting", "immediately engrossing and consuming", "passionate virtuosity" and "first rate". Tear features works by living and recent composers, and its contents exemplify the Quartet's artistic profile: to present new music for new audiences. Whether playing music "hot off the press" or delving into neglected gems of the past century, Del Sol has never sounded better, its bright mission vibrantly continuing to light the way for the future of today's classical music.

The Del Sol's Grammy-nominated 2005 CD of the complete string quartet repertory of George Antheil on the Other Minds label is the definitive recording of the composer who was among the most popular writers of the 20th century, and it has sparked a revival of interest in his chamber works. Current projects include a partnership with Melody of China, the Bay Area's internationally acclaimed traditional Chinese music ensemble, and a collaboration with ground-breaking, hip-hop inspired American composer Daniel Bernard Roumain. Presented by Other Minds, San Francisco Performances, Santa Fe New Music and Santa Fe Opera, the Del Sol String Quartet are actively performing both nationally and internationally. Their achievements were recognized by a 2004-2005 Award for Adventurous Programming, given by ASCAP and Chamber Music America.

Founded in 1992, the Del Sol String Quartet began its life 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. Recent appointments have included the 2003 "Emerging Quartets and Composers Residency" with the Muir String Quartet and Joan Tower in Park City, Utah; Quartet-in-Residence at the Hot Springs Music Festival, Arkansas (2004 and 2005), Quartet-in-Residence at the Composer's Symposium, University of New Mexico, and an upcoming residency at the Walden School, New Hampshire in 2006.

Some Quotes:

"The Del Sol String Quartet gives the kind of performance a composer loves to hear!" -- Joan Tower, composer

"Seizing the senses form the first downbeat, immediately engrossing and consuming." -- Tamara Turner, CD Baby editor

"The Del Sol plays like gangbusters throughout." -- Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

“Clearly making a name for themselves as a fresh and vibrant voice for new music in the Bay Area, the ensemble is also rising into position as a premier string quartet. Young and energetic, adventurous and all the while convincing, the quartet, comprising Rick Shinozaki and Kate Stenberg on violins, Charlton Lee, viola, and Monica Scott, cello, has done much to support young composers and to expose little-performed contemporary music.” -- David Bithell, San Francisco Classical Voice

Eva-Maria Zimmermann
Swiss Pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann maintains a career on two continents through performances that are “breathtakingly intense” (Der Bund, Switzerland) and “brilliant and sensitive” (Berner Oberländer). Her solo appearances include recitals as well as concerto performances with major symphony orchestras such as in Swisszerland the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Her musical studies led her to such distinguished musicians as Leon Fleisher, György Sebök, Leonard Hokanson and Dominique Merlet. She graduated with highest honors from the Conservatory of Geneva, and has appeared at international festivals in Israel, the US and Europe. Ms. Zimmermann currently lives in San Francisco where she performs with the Stone-Zimmermann violin-piano duo, teaches at the Nueva School (founded by Sir Yehudi Menuhin) and is raising a family.

Delos
Delos, an association of composers based in Seoul, Korea, was founded in 1992 by Young-ja Lee and a core group of nine composers, all of whom were alumni of Ewha Women's University. Membership has since grown to 14 and includes composers writing in a wide variety of styles. Delos has presented more than 20 concerts of members' music in Korea alone, often featuring special performances of music by guest composers. Their workshops with performers are unique in that they combine both traditional Korean and western instruments, developing a distinct new direction for East-West interaction. Delos is actively involved with Korean new music groups and, since 2004, has widened its scope of activity to include concerts with the Continuum Consort of Canada and the San Francisco-based Del Sol String Quartet.

This performance is funded, in part by Ewha Womans University Alumnae Association of Northern California, the Linneaus Thomson Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Office of the Korean Consulate in San Francisco, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Family Foundation and the Del Sol Performing Arts Organization donors.

Press Release: "XX05"

2005-01-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

January, 2005 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dominique Pelletey, (510) 595-8448 dominique@delsolquartet.com

The Del Sol String Quartet announces a program of contemporary music titled “XX05”

Who: Del Sol String Quartet
What: Keyla Orozco (1969, Cuba), Para Variar (2002) US premiere
Julia Wolfe (1958), Dig Deep (1998)
Joan Tower (1938), Night Fields (1994)
Gabriela Ortiz (1964, Mexico), Quartet No.1 (1990)
Amy Beach (1867), Quartet for Strings (in One Movement), Opus 89 (1929)

Variety and experimentation, energy and intensity are the threads that connect the five women composers featured on this program. From 1929, when Amy Beach was creating an American style for the first time by incorporating Inuit melodies into her music, to Keyla Orozco’s Cuban rhythms infiltrating her work at the end of the century, this program delights the audience with its sheer range of sounds and styles. From Joan Tower’s contemplative moments to Julia Wolfe’s impassioned outbursts, the Del Sol String Quartet present an exciting concert celebrating the achievements of women of the Americas.

When and Where:

Wednesday, February 16 - 8pm
ASHBY STAGE, 1901 Ashby Avenue @ MLK, Berkeley

Friday, February 18 - 8pm
GREEN ROOM, San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center
401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco

Saturday, February 19 - 8pm
DANCE PALACE, 503 B Street, Point Reyes Station

Sunday, February 20 - 4pm –
TATEUCHI HALL, Community School of Music and Arts at Finn Center
230 San Antonio Circle, Mountain View

How much: Tickets: $21 general l $14 seniorsl $7 students, kids
Info: http://www.delsolquartet.com
info@delsolquartet.com
tel: (415) 831-5672
Del Sol String Quartet
778 32nd Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94121

The program:
Variety and experimentation, energy and intensity are the threads that connect the five women composers featured on this program. From 1929, when Amy Beach was creating an American style for the first time by incorporating Inuit melodies into her music, to Keyla Orozco’s Cuban rhythms infiltrating her work at the end of the century, this program delights the audience with its sheer range of sounds and styles. From Joan Tower’s contemplative moments to Julia Wolfe’s impassioned outbursts, the Del Sol String Quartet present an exciting concert celebrating the achievements of women of the Americas.
Many of the works grew out of close collaboration between quartet and composer, with the playing style and temperament of specific musicians influencing the writing. Joan Tower was approached by the Muir Quartet to write her very first string quartet, and it was with confidence in their interpretive skills and emotional capacity that she embarked on this daunting project. Julia Wolfe has worked with some of the most imaginative ensembles in the country, including her own group Bang on a Can, Kronos and Ethel. In Dig Deep she explores the power and stamina that four people can create together. Like Tower and Wolfe, Amy Beach was also a performer and composer, with a wonderful sense of what works on stage. In this late string quartet, her only work in the medium, she foreshadows the dissonances and rhythmic complexities that later composers would explore more fully. The two Latin American composers on this program both show their indebtedness to the Western traditions of quartet writing as well as influence from their ethnic heritage. Ortiz masterfully weaves a complex tale into a concise nine-minute work, with harmonies and rhythmic influences from Bartok and Latin percussion rhythms. Orozco’s work is almost minimalist in its use of material, creating tension and energy through repetition; percussive effects using different playing techniques and the players feet hark to the Cuban drumming tradition, while harmonically Orozco has found a very personal sound.

The Pieces:

Amy Beach String Quartet in One Movement, Op. 89, (1929)
The String Quartet in One Movement, Op. 89 was sketched out in 1921 at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. Inspired by the three "meagre" (Beach's word) Eskimo or Inuit tunes she used as themes, Beach created a work that is at once dissonant and chromatic yet lyrical, tonally grounded in G minor but with extended sections where the music never settles on any key. While wintering in Rome in 1929 Beach completed the String Quartet with minor revisions and had a local quartet play it for her. Back in the States there were a number of performances during the 1930s, beginning with an invitational program given in New York in January, 1931 by the Society of American Women Composers, of which Beach was a founder and the first president. Its final performance during her lifetime was at a festival of Beach's music at the Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington, D.C. in November, 1942 to celebrate her 75th birthday. Reviewers found it a work of "unusual beauty."

Keyla Orozco, Para Variar (2002)
A sparse, percussive opening movement gives way to a set of variations that explore rhythmic gestures. Starting in a pointillistic fashion, with outbursts from each instrument solo, the work build complexity with crossing lines, gathering momentum to a frenzied unison passage and ending with driving fortissimo chords. The piece was commissioned by the Dutch Fonds voor Scheppende Toonkunst, and premiered and dedicated to the Mondriaan Quartet.

Joan Tower, Night Fields (1994)
Night Fields (1994), for string quartet, is dedicated to the Muir String Quartet. Tower’s title suggests the moods created in the piece, which she describes as “a cold, windy night in wheat fields lit up by a bright, full moon, where waves of fast-moving colors ripple over the fields, occasionally settling on a patch of gold.”

Gabriela Ortiz, Cuarteto no. 1
Ortiz’s early work shows a natural affinity for the medium, which she was to explore in profound detail in her later work Altar das Muertas, which has received performances by both Kronos and Cuarteto Latinoamericano throughout the world. In the one movement Cuarteto no. 1, Ortiz explores the emotional range of string writing, beginning with a mysterious, dark mood that breaks away into a lighter, energetic section marked by unison chords and duets of instruments playing contrasting material. The piece is circular in structure, ending in the slow, peaceful mood of the opening.

Julia Wolfe, Dig Deep(1998)
In Dig Deep the players dig deep into the strings to create a dense, thick, intense, reedy sound. The music wrestles back and forth between the deep attacks and frenzied tunes. The piece reflects a personal struggle, digging deep for compassion and understanding. Dig Deep was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet with support from Nora Norden.

Composer biographies:

Amy Marcy Beach (1867-1944)
Born Amy Marcy Cheney in Henniker, NH. in 1867, Mrs. H.H. Beach, as she styled herself after her marriage to a prominent physician in 1885, became the first woman composer to achieve wide recognition in America. A child prodigy on the piano, she made her Boston concert debut at age sixteen. Within two years she had performed Chopin's F MINOR CONCERTO FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA with the Boston Symphony and had begun to tour widely as a soloist. After marriage to Dr. Beach, however, she curtailed her concertizing in favor of homemaking. It was during this period until her husband's death in 1910 that Mrs. Beach first began to compose. Her FESTIVAL JUBILATE, written for the dedication of the Women's Building at Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1892, won recognition for her as a serious composer in the Romantic genre. She followed this success with a GAELIC SYMPHONY, performed by the Boston Symphony in 1896, and her PIANO CONCERTO IN C-SHARP minor in 1899, which she herself premiered with the same orchestra. As a widow, Mrs. Beach resumed her concertizing in America and Germany and increased her compositional output. In addition to her piano music and large scale orchestral works, she created more than 150 songs, almost all in the grand, operatic, heart-on-sleeve vein of the late 19th century. Settings like AH, LOVE, BUT A DAY! and THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING became staples of the early 20th century concert repertory.

Keyla Orozco (b. 1969)
Keyla Orozco studied piano and music theory in Santiago de Cuba and later in Havana at the Escuela Nacional de Arte (ENA) with Ileana Bautista . After that she studied composition at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana with Harold Gramatges (1988-93). She continued her composition studies as a post-graduate student in The Netherlands with Theo Loevendie at the Royal conservatory in The Hage and Amsterdam Conservatory (1995-98).

Orozco has won several awards and prizes, including a Guggenheim Latin American & Caribbean fellowship Award in New York (2000), the Cintas Fellowship for creative arts, awarded by the Institute of International Education in New York (2003) and Two prizes from the International composition competition René Amengual in Santiago de Chile (1994).

She has received numerous commissions from organizations and ensembles in Holland like: the Nederlands Kamerkoor, Nederlands Fluitorkest, Asko ensemble, VPRO television, Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst, De Ereprijs, Nieuw Ensemble, Amsterdam fonds voor de Kunst and others. Her works has been performed in Festivals and events around the world including Cuba, the Netherlands, USA, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Spain, Ukraine, Austria, Aruba, Venezuela and others. Some of her pieces are published by Donemus (publisher of muziekgroup Nederland), Amsterdam, and six works have been released on cd's in Holland, Mexico and Aruba, including Extremes (1998) and Perpetuumm (1999) by Combustion Chamber ensemble and The New ensemble, both conducted by Rutger van leyden (Ned.). Besides composing, Orozco has been since her studying years an active organizer of music projects to promote contemporary music in Cuba and The Netherlands. See event Q-ba Música 2004 at www.perpetuumm.com. In 2002 Orozco became assistant of Theo Loevendie in Composition at the Amsterdam's conservatory

Joan Tower
Even as she prepares for her 70th birthday in 2008, Joan Tower's career is as much about looking forward as it is about looking back on a career that already spans over five decades.

Hailed as, "One of the most successful woman composers of all time" in The New Yorker magazine, Joan Tower was inducted in 1998 into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was the first woman ever to receive the Grawemeyer Award in Composition in 1990, and she was inducted into the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University in the fall of 2004.

Since 1972, Tower has taught at Bard College where she is Asher Edelman Professor of Music. She continues as composer-in-residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, a title she also held for eight years at the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Tower's other accolades include the 1998 Delaware Symphony's Alfred I. DuPont Award for Distinguished American Composers and the 2002 Annual Composer's Award from the Lancaster (PA) Symphony. "Tower has truly earned a place among the most original and forceful voices in modern American music" (The Detroit News).

Joan Tower's bold and energetic music, with its striking imagery and novel structural forms, has won large, enthusiastic audiences. From 1969-1984, she was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her most popular works. Her first orchestral work, Sequoia, quickly entered the repertory, with performances by orchestras including St. Louis, New York, San Francisco, Minnesota, Tokyo NHK, Toronto, the National Symphony and London Philharmonia. A choreographed version by The Royal Winnipeg Ballet toured throughout Canada, Europe, and Russia. Ms. Tower's tremendously popular five Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been played by over 400 different ensembles. Her 1993 ballet Stepping Stones was commissioned by choreographer Kathryn Posin for the Milwaukee Ballet.

Gabriela Ortiz Torres was born in Mexico City, where she studied composition with Mario Lavista at the National Conservatory of Music, and Federico Ibarra at the National University of Mexico. In 1990 she was awarded The British Council Fellowship to study in London with Robert Saxton at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1992 she received the University of Mexico Scholarship to complete Ph.D. studies in electroacoustic music composition with Simon Emmerson at The City University in London. She currently teaches composition at the Mexican University of Mexico City.

She is considered one of the best of the group of young Mexican composers that have worked towards building a personal musical language that could be based on both musical tradition and the avant-garde; that could combine high art, folk music or jazz in novel, sometimes precious and especially personal ways; and that could be both entertaining and immediate as well as profound and sophisticated. Ortiz Torres’ music achieves a balance between highly organized structure and improvisatory spontaneity.

Julia Wolfe
Born in Philadelphia, Julia Wolfe's music has been performed by a prestigious cast of characters: San Francisco Symphony, Bang on a Can All-Stars, American Composers Orchestra, Piano Circus, Newband, the California EAR Unit, Margaret Leng Tan, Orkest de Volharding, the Cassatt Quartet, the Lark Quartet and Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne. Crossing over into the worlds of theater and dance, her works have been choreographed by Eliot Feld, Doug Varone, and the Dusseldorf Ballet; she also composed music for Anna Deveare Smith's most recent play House Arrest. She was recently awarded a 1999 Academy Award by the American Academy for the Arts and Letters. Julia Wolfe's appetite for music is wide-ranging and voracious: her enthusiasm for late Beethoven rivaled only by her passion for Led Zeppelin, or perhaps her love of traditional American folk music. These influences and many others can be heard subtly but clearly in her work, yet in no way is her work a pastiche of styles. What then marks Julia Wolfe's musical 'style'? There is not any single identifiable element but, rather, a focus on the act of making sound; sound not for its own sake but as a product of human endeavor, as a beautiful and powerful abstraction that people create, contemplate, imbue with and derive meaning from. Sound is for Julia Wolfe a metaphor for human activity in general, and she approaches it with care and attention to detail that is both masterful and highly respectful. Her work makes this evident in a variety of ways. In her first string quartet Four Marys, the ballad of the same name is not referred to literally, but instead evoked through a minute examination of a sound quality that is culled from Appalachia. It is as if the sound of the dulcimer is put under a microscope, examined with loving detail, and transformed into a music of rare, strange beauty. On the opposite end of the same spectrum lies Window of Vulnerability, written for the American Composers Orchestra, in which the massive sonic universe of rock serves as a source; the music takes this relatively recent musical possibility - sheer volume - and reinvents its function and use These titles - and others such as Arsenal of Democracy, Dig Deep, Amber Waves of Grain and Believing - are evocative but unpolemical, and are thus indicative of Ms. Wolfe's work as a whole. They make their points effectively without harangue or grandstanding. Instead they deliver subtle, powerful messages, allowing the listener to make connections between the music and other, perhaps larger concerns. This highly humanistic message is emblematic of Julia Wolfe's artistic work - a wonderful example of humanly organized sound, working towards a soundly organized humanity.

The Del Sol String Quartet

Since 2001, the San Francisco-based Del Sol String Quartet has immersed itself in the recording and performance of music of the Americas. Their critically acclaimed 2002 CD Tear includes masters of the twentieth century Ruth Crawford, Alberto Ginastera, Earle Brown, Silvestre Revueltas, Astor Piazzolla and Lou Harrison alongside recent works by Gabriela Ortiz, Ronald Bruce Smith, Adriana Figueroa Mañas, Keeril Makan and John Harbison. DSSQ have made a special commitment to include women composers in their programs, juxtaposing premieres of works by Gabriela Lena Frank, Hyo-Shin Na, and Keyla Orozco, with Joan Tower, Julia Wolfe and early twentieth century composers, Amy Beach and Ruth Crawford. Recent works commissioned for the Del Sol String Quartet include those by award-winning composers Keeril Makan and Daniel Bernard Roumain. Upcoming projects that highlight the wealth of cultural diversity in the arts include collaborations with composers Chinary Ung and Reza Vali, as well as a partnering with Melody of China (traditional Chinese ensemble) to premiere a new piece by Kui Dong. Hailed for their "passionate and committed" and "emotionally riveting" performances, the Del Sol String Quartet aim to present music of the twentieth century and beyond with the naturalness of classics. Having won various prestigious grants, and with invitations to perform in festivals throughout the United States, DSSQ is emerging as one of the major proponents for contemporary string music in North America. The Del Sol String Quartet was recognized for its achievements with a 2004 Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming.

Press Release: "World Premiere of Quintet Piece by Keeril Makan"

2004-10-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

October 12, 2004 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dominique Pelletey, (510) 595-8448 dominique@delsolquartet.com

The Del Sol String Quartet announces the world premiere of a quintet for percussion and strings by Keeril Makan in a program of contemporary music titled “Keeril, Gabi, John and Lou”

Friday, November 19th, 2004, 8 p.m.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum
701 Mission St @ 3rd, San Francisco
Tickets: $21/$14 seniors/$7 students
For tickets, call (415) 978.2787 or www.YerbaBuenaArts.org

Lou Harrison (1917 - 2003) String Quartet Set (1979)
Gabriela Lena Frank (b.1971) Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout (2001)
John Adams (b. 1947) John’s Book of Alleged Dances (1994) selection
Keeril Makan (b. 1972) Static Rising for string quartet and percussion (2004)

Drawing from the most prodigious local talent, John Adams and the late Lou Harrison, as well as exciting, award-winning newcomers Gabriela Lena Frank and Keeril Makan, the Del Sol String Quartet, joined by John Bartlit, percussion, offer a program of diverse, evocative and ground-breaking music, including a world-premiere commissioned by the Del Sol String Quartet with a grant from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Special Awards Program and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

On November 19, 2004, the Del Sol String Quartet will present a concert at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, featuring the world premiere of a piece by composer, Keeril Makan. This performance is the culmination of a project made possible by the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Special Awards Program awarded in 2002 for new music composition. With all four members of the Del Sol String Quartet being Bay Area natives, they chose to celebrate, in the spirit of the award designed for Northern Californian artists, the talent and diversity of our region. The program will include 3 other pieces by important Bay Area composers Lou Harrison, John Adams, and Gabriela Lena Frank. Both Harrison and Adams were the previous grantees of the award for new music composition last given in 1989. Gabriela Lena Frank is the youngest composer published by G. Schirmer Inc.
(over)
The DSSQ has a long history collaborating with Keeril Makan, playing his first string quartet, Cut, in 1998, while the composer was a graduate student at Cal, Berkeley. The quartet has since released two of Makans pieces on their CDs Short Cuts and Tear, and violist Charlton Lee will be premiering a duo (Meet the Composer Commissioning Grant) for viola and clarinet in 2005. The new work on the “Keeril, Gabi, John and Lou “program is for quartet and percussion, with collaborator John Bartlit on percussion.

Keeril Makan about his new piece:
Static Rising for string quartet and percussion (2004)

My main source of inspiration in this piece is the raw physicality of the instruments themselves. In intimate detail, I am seeking to reveal the richness of the sonic combination of percussion and stringed instruments. There is an ongoing play in the piece on ventures into and out of the nebulous and fertile territory that exists between pitch and noise. Some of the areas explored in this piece include unexpected temporal mutations and rhythmic intricacies. There are sustained sections punctuated by violent attacks and noisy outbursts, as well as sparse but carefully structured timbral explorations. I am very fortunate to be writing for the Del Sol String Quartet, whose musical energy and strengths are already familiar to me. As a result of this knowledge, I have confidently pushed the piece into unknown areas and presented the group with new performance challenges, knowing that they will respond with their characteristic musical bravura, energy, and intelligence.

The program will be repeated on:
Saturday, November 20, 2004 8pm
TATEUCHI HALL
Community School of Music and Arts at Finn Center
230 San Antonio Circle, Mountain View
Tickets: $21/$14 seniors/$7 students
(This new building received
the 2004 American Institute of Architects SF chapter Design Award.)

Sunday, November 21, 2004 3pm
DANCE PALACE
503 B Street (on the corner of 5th and B Streets), Point Reyes
Tickets: $21/$14 seniors/$7 students
($15/$13 seniors /$7 kids for Dance Palace members)

Wallace Alexander Gerbode Awards for New Commissions

2002-12-23T13:40:00.000-08:00

December 23, 2002

THE WALLACE ALEXANDER GERBODE FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES
NEW COMMISSIONS for BAY AREA MUSIC COMPOSITIONS

The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation is pleased to announce the presentation of grants to six nonprofit Bay Area performing and producing organizations for the commissioning of major compositions from six Northern California composers. The grants were initially intended to be $25,000 each. However, thanks to additional funds provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Gerbode Foundation will make six grants of $50,000, with half ($25,000) of each grant earmarked as a commission to a composer, and the remainder ($25,000) to be spent on production, presentation and documentation of the composition’s world premiere performance.

The grantees for the Gerbode Music Composition Awards are:

The Kronos Performing Arts Association aka Kronos Quartet/Terry Riley. The internationally-known Kronos Quartet will commission a new work from veteran Bay Area composer Terry Riley. This new sextet will premiere locally in June 2005 (on the occasion of Riley’s 70th birthday) in a performance by Kronos, keyboard-vocalist Riley and Wu Man, a virtuoso of the pipa (Chinese four-stringed lute).

Pacific Chamber Symphony/Wayne Peterson. The San Leandro-based Pacific
Chamber Symphony will commission a chamber orchestral work from native San Francisco composer Wayne Peterson, a Pulitzer Prize honoree whose compositions have been widely performed.

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra/Paul Dresher. The San Francisco Chamber
Orchestra will commission a new orchestral piece from Paul Dresher, composer and leader of the Paul Dresher Ensemble and the Electro-Acoustic Band.

San Francisco Contemporary Music Players/Pablo Ortiz. The SF Contemporary Music Players will commission a new work from composer and University of California, Davis music professor Pablo Ortiz, a Buenos Aires native now based in California.

SF Friends of Chamber Music & Del Sol String Quartet/ Keeril Makan. Bay Area-based Del Sol String Quartet (applying under the fiscal umbrella of the SF Friends of Chamber Music) will commission a work for strings and percussion from young Berkeley composer and former Fulbright scholar Keeril Makan. [emphasis added]

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts/Miya Masaoka. San Francisco’s Yerba Buena
Center for the Arts will commission San Francisco composer and koto player Miya Masaoka to create a piece for “vocal orchestra,” to be initially performed by more than 100 singers from throughout the Bay Area.

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Commenting on the grants, Gerbode Foundation president Thomas C. Layton noted, “Northern California is home to many worthy musical organizations and to quite a few inventive, respected composers. With generous help from the Hewlett Foundation, we are pleased to support the creation of important new works by some well-established area composers, as well as some promising younger artists. We look forward to these pieces premiering before Bay Area audiences in the years to come.”

ABOUT THE SPECIAL AWARDS PROGRAM

For more than 15 years, The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation has made innovative grants through its Special Awards Program to San Francisco Bay Area arts institutions for the commission of new works by gifted Northern California artists including playwrights, choreographers, visual artists, poets, composers, and multi-media artists.

These awards have resulted in important, meaningful, and cutting-edge new pieces by both prominent artists and up-and-coming creators. The grants have supported artists at critical junctures in their careers; enabled nonprofit local arts organizations to develop and premiere substantial new works; and, offered local audiences, readers, and viewers first access to such works.

Among the new works supported by these grants are Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Angels in America, important new dance compositions by Margaret Jenkins and Alonzo King, musical compositions by John Adams and the late Lou Harrison, and numerous public visual art pieces throughout the city of San Francisco.

The Gerbode Foundation’s Special Awards, in some years compounded in monetary value by generous contributions from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, have also assisted small but worthy arts community institutions and lesser-known artists reflecting the wide range of ethnic, cultural, and aesthetic diversity in the San Francisco Bay Area arts scene. At a time of substantial cutbacks in private and municipal arts giving, when individual artists have great difficulty securing funding for worthwhile endeavors, the Gerbode Foundation’s commissioning grants are highly coveted and nationally respected.

The San Francisco-based Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation annually gives Special Awards to the arts, including, in past years, Visual Arts, Choreography, Theater, Photography and Poetry. The last time commissions for new compositions were funded was in 1989, at which time recipients included:

80 Langton Street: Chris Brown
City Celebration, Jazz in the City: Tony Williams
Composers, Inc.: Wayne Peterson
Pacifica Foundation: Lou Harrison
San Francisco Contemporary Music Players: John Adams
San Francisco Girls Chorus: Anithaca by Elinor Armer