Darius Milhaud Concert - Del Sol String Quartet

Presented by Mills College Music Department and the Center for Contemporary Music

Darius Milhaud Concert - Del Sol String Quartet

Program:

Darius Milhaud: String Quartet No. 12, Op. 252 (1945)

Elena Kats-Chernin: Fast Blue Village (2007)

Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 4, "Amazing Grace" (1973)

Terry Riley: G Song (1980)

Darius Milhaud: String Quartet No. 16, Op. 303 (1950)

Del Sol String Quartet:

Ben Kreith, violin

Sam Weiser, violin,

Charlton Lee, viola,

Kathryn Bates, cello

Hailed by Gramophone as “masters of all musical things they survey” and two-time winner of the top Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, the Del Sol String Quartet shares living music with an ever-growing community of adventurous listeners.

Fascinated by the feedback loop between social change, technology, and artistic innovation, the San Francisco-based ensemble is a leading force in 21st century chamber music, whether introducing Ben Johnston’s microtonal Americana at the Library of Congress, exploring Andean soundscapes with Gabriela Lena Frank and traditional musicians, deconstructing Ruth Crawford’s radical experimental processes with East Bay schoolchildren, or rocking Mason Bates’ techno grooves in his San Francisco club dance party.

Del Sol was founded in 1992 at Banff Centre for the Arts and is recognized as a “vigorous champion of living composers,” focusing on music that reflects the cultural diversity of our community, advocating works by both world-renowned and emerging composers, and collaborating across disciplines. Del Sol has commissioned and premiered over 100 works by a diverse range of composers, including Terry Riley, Mason Bates, Frederic Rzewski, Ben Johnston, Gabriela Lena Frank, Chinary Ung, Ken Ueno, Mohammed Fairouz, Tania León, Peter Sculthorpe, Reza Vali and Per Nørgård. The Quartet has performed on prominent concert series nationwide, including the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, Symphony Space, Miller Theatre, Cabrillo Festival, Other Minds Festival, and Santa Fe Opera; and internationally in Switzerland, France, China, South Korea, Canada and Mexico. The Quartet conducts an active educational program in the San Francisco Bay Area, in addition to regular residencies at universities and music schools across the country.

The New York Times praised Del Sol’s recent recording, Scrapyard Exotica:  “See if your foot can stay still once you put on this funky disc of rhythmically infectious…music played by the adventurous Del Sol String Quartet.” Released August 25, 2017, Del Sol’s ninth album “Dark Queen Mantra” features a collaboration with guitarist Gyan Riley and world premiere recordings of music by Terry Riley and Stefano Scodanibbio.  SF Chronicle says, “The evening began with ravishing performances of two of Riley’s string quartets from the 1980s, “G Song” and “The Wheel and Mythic Birds Waltz,” both of which the quartet — performing, astonishingly, from memory — imbued with a full helping of sinuous charm.”

Photo Credit: Lenny Gonzalez