Summer 2009

1. Del Sol String Quartet’s New York Debut
2. “You Are Hear” at San Francisco International Airport
3. Other Minds Festival 14
4. Virginia Waring International Piano Competition
5. “Mestizaje” Del Sol’s Home Season Concerts
6. “Wet Ink” Concert
7. Garden of Memory
8. CD Reviews

1. Del Sol String Quartet’s New York Debut

We will perform our first concert at Symphony Space in New York City on October 1st, co-presented by the Polish Cultural Institute. We will play string quartets by two contemporary Polish composers, Pawel Mykietin and Pawel Szymanski. Also on the program will be the New
York premiere of “Esencia,” written for us by Cuban-American composer Tania León, through a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation, as well as a work by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. The following day, October 2nd, we will present a lecture-concert at New York’s Korean Cultural Service, featuring music by Paul Yeon Lee as well as other Korean composers. Stay tuned for more details this fall!

2. “You Are Hear” at San Francisco International Airport

This summer Del Sol treats travelers to an eclectic program of music, new and old, as they pass through SFO. Presented by Tarmac Music, this performance series brings great Bay Area musical groups to SFO every Friday through the summer. The Quartet’s next airport performance will be on August 21st, 11am-2pm. For those of you traveling that day, please come visit us in Terminal 3!

3. Other Minds Festival 14

Del Sol played to packed houses for all three nights of the Other Minds Festival of new music in San Francisco in March. Del Sol’s cellist, Hannah Addario-Berry, recalls: We spent the weeks leading up to the festival immersing ourselves in composer/pianist Michael Harrison’s glorious and challenging ‘Tone Clouds’. This piece, written for Del Sol, uses a ‘just intonation’ tuning system, which required us to retrain our ears and fingers to match his specially-tuned piano. He joined us to perform the world premiere of ‘Tone Clouds’ for String Quartet and Piano, and we look forward to recording the piece someday!”

In addition to Harrison’s piece, we performed the world premiere of “Gondola”, a new work written for Del Sol by Toronto-based Linda Catlin Smith (and commissioned through the Canada Council for the Arts). Also, it was wonderful to get to know the young Polish composer, Dobromila Jaskot, on her first trip to the U.S., and perform her quartet “Linearia.” And of course, we greatly enjoyed the opportunity to work with composer Chinary Ung and perform his “Spiral X: In Memoriam” again. In a review of the festival, London Financial Times critic Allan Ulrich wrote: "Chinary Ung’s Spiral X: In Memoriam recalls the Cambodian holocaust through lush string textures
punctuated by the wailing and keening of the members of the Del Sol String Quartet, the dedicatees and superb interpreters of the piece. A true cry from the heart."

4. Virginia Waring International Piano Competition

Also in March, Del Sol traveled to Palm Desert, California to perform as the quartet-in-residence for the Chamber Music Round, at the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition. In three intense days and two concerts, the quartet members rehearsed and performed piano quintets by Brahms, Schumann, and Franck with the 12 finalists in the competition. “It was a treat to perform some old masterworks with a variety of incredibly talented young pianists and interpreters. We look forward to seeing their careers blossom in the coming years.” (Charlton Lee, Del Sol Violist)

5. “Mestizaje” Del Sol’s Home Season Concerts

In May we presented our Bay Area Home Season concerts in Point Reyes Station and San Francisco, including world premieres of two brand-new works written especially for Del Sol by composers Paul Yeon Lee (Korea) and Tania León (Cuba). Both composers came out from New York City to join the Quartet for the San Francisco concert and educational outreach activities. The Quartet, together with Lee and León, presented their pieces to young music students at San Francisco’s Community Music Center and School of the Arts, followed by an
interactive conversation among the students, Quartet members and composers. The Home Season program also included Linda Catlin Smith’s “Gondola” (premiered in March at the OM Festival), and the String Quartet No. 5 by Philip Glass. San Francisco Classical Voice reviewer Beeri Moalem wrote that Del Sol’s “commitment to new music is essential to keeping our classical music community living and breathing, with current composers who write from the depths of their soul as well as the profundity of their brain.”

6. “Wet Ink” Concert

In June Del Sol visited Grass Valley, CA to perform at the “Wet Ink” concert hosted by the Music in the Mountains Summer Festival. The Quartet had the opportunity to work with four composers from the Nevada City Composers Cooperative, Jay Sydeman, Mark Vance, Jerry Grant, and Randy McKean, and performed the world premieres of each of their string quartets on a beautiful evening at the Nevada County Fairgrounds.


7. Garden of Memory

Del Sol performed again at this year’s annual Summer Solstice event “Garden of Memory” at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland. Taking place in the beautiful Julia Morgan-designed columbarium, this event is a wonderful bazaar of new music ensembles, composers, electric and acoustic musicians. Audience members wander through the maze of hallways and alcoves and chapels, stopping to sit and listen to their favorite ensemble or a newly discovered treasure. The Quartet performed a wide range of music from Glass to Gershwin and was thrilled to reconnect with didjeridoo master, Stephen Kent, to play Peter Sculthorpe’s beautiful piece for string quartet and didjeridoo.

8. CD Reviews

Del Sol’s two recent CDs have been a hit with the reviewers!

“First Life” (2009), which features world premiere recordings of rare early works for string quartet and solo piano by Marc Blitzstein was released by Other Minds Records this April. (OM 1017-2): “... the Del Sol players produce a gloriously opulent, full-throated tone that prevents exuberantly inventive writing from catching an expressive chill. Warmly recorded and perceptively played, this is music well worth getting to know.” (Strad magazine)


“Ring of Fire-Music of the Pacific Rim” (2008) (OM-1016-2) “No fault-lines in this spirited musical journey around volcano country” Gramophone called Del Sol “masters of all musical things surveyed on this disc” (Gramophone magazine)







Full reviews and links can be found on our website.