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)
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Monday, December 23, 2002
Wallace Alexander Gerbode Awards for New Commissions
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.
(over)
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
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.
(over)
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
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