Happy Year of the Ox!

1. Other Minds Festival 14
2. Blitzstein CD: "First Life"
3. Chamber Music America
4. "Composing Together" Schools Program
5. Rave Reviews for Ring of Fire
6. Commissioning Joan Jeanrenaud
7. Your Support is Crucial

1. Other Minds Festival 14

Del Sol plays the music of Chinary Ung, Michael Harrison, Dobromila Jaskot, and Linda Catlin Smith at the Other Minds Festival 14 on March 5-7, 2009 at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. Three of the composers wrote their works specifically for Del Sol, and the Quartet will be performing on all three nights of the Festival, including two world premieres and one U.S. premiere. Check out the remarkable tuning system of Michael Harrison, who will play his specially tuned, “just-intonation” piano with the Quartet in his piece, "Tone Clouds," on the Festival’s closing night. The Quartet’s participation in the Festival is supported, in part, by a generous grant from the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation.
The Trio con Brio Copenhagen and the Amsterdam Cello Octet are also coming to town for the three-day Festival, along with a host of other performers and composers. Concerts take place March 5-7: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. The specific programs for each evening’s concert are listed at www.otherminds.org. For tickets, call the JCCSF Box Office at (415) 292-1233 or order online.

2. Blitzstein CD: "First Life"

This April, Other Minds Records will release "First Life," a CD featuring world premiere recordings of rarely-played early works by American composer, Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964), performed by the Del Sol String Quartet and pianist Sarah Cahill. Del Sol recorded Blitzstein's complete string quartet repertoire--Quartet for Strings "The Italian" (1930) and the Serenade for String Quartet (1932)--and Cahill plays the Piano Sonata (1927), Piano Percussion Music (1929), and the Scherzo "Bourgeois at Play" (1930).
"First Life" will be available for sneak-preview purchase at the Other Minds Festival this March, or online.


3. Chamber Music America

In January, Del Sol violinist Kate Stenberg performed with pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann in New York City at the closing "American Masterpieces" concert of the 2009 Chamber Music America National Conference. This concert honors chamber groups that have been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts in the past year. The duo played Ruth Crawford Seeger’s violin Sonata in the beautiful Saint Luke’s Church, on a program shared with the Harlem String Quartet, The Parker Quartet and the String Trio of New York. A few years ago Del Sol played Crawford Seeger’s masterful 1931 string quartet and have recorded the Andante movement on their “Tear” CD (2002).
Violist Charlton Lee also attended the CMA Conference, joining Del Sol’s booking agent, Peter Robles of Serious Music Media, to meet with presenters on whose concert series the Quartet will perform in the coming seasons. They also enjoyed Kate’s and Eva-Maria’s concert from the audience. Charlton later spent a beautiful, snowy day with composer Michael Harrison, discussing and working on Del Sol’s upcoming premiere of his “Tone Clouds” piece for string quartet and piano. While in New York, the land of composers and food, Charlton also shared meals with two other composers writing works for Del Sol--Tania León and Paul Lee-- whose quartets will be premiered at our Home Season concerts in May.
photos from left to right: Kate Stenberg, Eva-Maria Zimmermann, Charlton Lee – photos by Charles Amirkhanian

4. "Composing Together" Schools Program

Del Sol collaborated with local composer and educator, Katrina Wreede, in a highly successful educational program last fall reaching traditionally under-served students in three public middle and high schools in San Francisco and the East Bay. In several classroom visits during the semester the Quartet members and Katrina provided students with hands-on mentoring to compose their own music through a process tailored to their varied musical experience, understanding and skill levels. At the end of the project the Quartet performed the students’ works in concerts at each school, which was recorded on CDs for the participants. In evaluating last year's program, one participating teacher commented: "I would do this project every year. This is a superb project for school musicians." We hope to continue and expand the program to five schools this fall if we can raise the required funding from foundations and other supporters.
Washington High School students - photo by Jill Hendricks

5. Rave Reviews for Ring of Fire

Del Sol’s new CD, “Ring of Fire: Music of the Pacific Rim,” released in 2008 on the Other Minds label, has been praised by critics from San Francisco to the UK as “ear-opening” and a “bracing sampler, performed with sensitivity and flair.” (The Boston Globe). The December 2008 issue of Gramophone magazine published a glowing, half-page review with color photos, calling the Quartet “masters of all musical things they survey on this disc, playing with a combination of ferocious attack, riveting interplay and silken splendour.” See our website for complete reviews and to buy the CD.

6. Commissioning Joan Jeanrenaud

This year we are beginning a new project with San Francisco composer, Joan Jeanrenaud, to write her first string quartet for Del Sol. The Quartet members are excited to work with Jeanrenaud, a new music champion and acclaimed former cellist of the Kronos Quartet. This project is supported by foundation grants awarded to us by the American Composers Forum and The San Francisco Foundation, along with generous matching gifts from several of our individual donors. We expect to premiere the new work at our 2010 Home Season concerts.

Left to right Kate Stenberg, Rick Shinozaki, Hannah Addario-Berry, Joan Jeanrenaud, Charlton Lee – photo by Frank Addario

7. Your Support is Crucial

We appreciate so much the generous response of donors to our 2008 Year-End solicitation. Because of the recession, like many other nonprofits, we began cutting costs last fall and have cut our 2009 budget further. We depend on the generosity of individuals like you to continue making contemporary chamber music accessible to the public through the Del Sol Quartet’s work. Your gifts support continuing our “Composing Together” collaboration in public schools this fall, our Home Season concerts in May, and two new multi-media projects that we hope to begin this year, plus our ongoing operations. You can donate online. Thank you to all of you who have continued to support us through hard times, and we hope that others also will give as generously as they can.