Riley: Dark Queen Mantra Del Sol String Quartet

• Terry Riley: Dark Queen Mantra:
• 1 I. Vizcaino 05:44
• 2 II. Goya with Wings 08:06
• 3 III. Dark Queen Mantra 11:50
• Stefano Scodanibbio: Mas Lugares (Su Madrigali di Monteverdi):
• 4 I. Allegro 03:53
• 5 II. Io mi son giovinetta 03:24
• 6 III. Largo 03:57
• 7 IV. Quell'augellin, che canta 03:25
• 8 V. Che se tu se' 'l cor mio 06:06
• Terry Riley:
• 9 The Wheel & Mythic Birds Waltz 15:59
• Total Runtime 01:02:24

Info zu Riley: Dark Queen Mantra

For the Del Sol Quartet, this album is a culmination – and also the start of an ongoing musical journey. Terry Riley doesn’t limit his music within a final double-bar but allows it to keep on growing – he’s already composed more music for us to play together. As a quartet, we’ve found new energy and growth through the experience of performing Terry’s quartets off-book, by memory. As musicians, we’ve found an inspiring example – Terry has the strength to follow his own path balanced with the humility and curiosity of an eternal student. For our 25th anniversary festival, we are focusing on Terry’s music and honored that Terry and Gyan will be joining us.

Like so many worthwhile endeavors, this album began with a friendship. Del Sol violist Charlton Lee first met guitarist Gyan while playing in an ensemble led by the composer/bassist Gavin Bryars. “I’d been wanting to find more opportunities to play with Gyan ever since we met,” Charlton explains. “And with Terry’s 80th birthday on the horizon it seemed a perfect time to commission a new piece for all of us to play together.”

For the other dimension of this album, we had long been aware of Stefano Scodanibbio’s awesome abilities as a trailblazing double-bass virtuoso, we had our first chance to perform his music thanks to Gyan. Gyan curated a memorial concert celebrating Stefano’s music at The Stone in New York City and invited us to participate.

Del Sol String Quartet 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.

Recognized as a “vigorous champion of living composers,” Del Sol has premiered well over 100 works through its extensive commissioning and innovative performances. The composers represent a diverse range of contemporary voices, including Terry Riley, Mason Bates, Frederic Rzewski, Ben Johnston, Gabriela Lena Frank, Chinary Ung, Tania León, Ken Ueno, Peter Sculthorpe, Reza Vali, Mohammed Fairouz and Per Nørgård.

Gyan Riley Guitarist Gyan Riley’s diverse work now focuses on his own compositions, improvisation, and contemporary classical repertoire. Gyan has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, New Music USA, the Carnegie Hall Corporation, the American Composers Forum, and the New York Guitar Festival. He has performed with Zakir Hussain, Lou Reed, John Zorn, the Kronos Quartet, Iva Bittova, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the San Francisco Symphony, the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, and his father, the composer/pianist/vocalist Terry Riley.

Terry Riley Composer and performer Terry Riley is one of the founders of music’s minimalist movement. His early works, notably “In C,” pioneered a form in Western music based on structured interlocking repetitive patterns. The influence of Riley’s hypnotic, multilayered, polymetric, brightly orchestrated Eastern-flavored improvisations and compositions is heard across the span of contemporary and popular music.

Stefano Scodanibbio was a brilliant inventor of new musical possibilities, virtuoso performer, and phenomenal improviser. He came to prominence in the 1980s, premiering solo contrabass works by Brian Ferneyhough, Iannis Xenakis, Salvatore Sciarrino, Giacinto Scelsi, Gerard Grisey and others. His bass technique was so inventive that Luigi Nono used the indication “arco mobile à la Stefano Scodanibbio” in the score of Prometeo. He composed over fifty works, principally for strings.

Del Sol String Quartet
Gyan Riley, guitar

Del Sol String Quartet
The San Francisco based Del Sol String Quartet, two-time winner of the top Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, is breaking the boundaries of classical music in riveting performances of new music with a global pulse.

Kate Stenberg
first violinist with the Del Sol String Quartet, was a founding member of the Bay Area contemporary music groups Left Coast and The Real Vocal String Quartet. She has performed as a soloist in the U.S., Europe, Mexico, Canada and South Korea, as well as with cellists Bonnie Hampton, Joan Jeanrenaud and Jean-Michel Fonteneau, and pianists Eva-Maria Zimmermann, Lisa Moore and Sarah Cahill, and she also plays on occasion in the San Francisco Symphony. Stenberg’s solo playing has been described as "highly virtuosic and deeply communicative…” In addition to her recordings with the Del Sol String Quartet, she has recorded with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Stratos, and her CD of contemporary repertoire, “Scenes from a Séance” (with pianist Eva-Maria Zimmerman) was released by Other Minds in 2012. Stenberg graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and received her Master’s Degree from the Eastman School of Music.

Rick Shinozaki
violinist, is principal second violin of Symphony Silicon Valley and concertmaster of the Nova Vista Symphony. Solo appearances include the world premiere of Viennese composer Zdzislaw Wysocki's Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra under Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony. Rick has collaborated closely with Bay Area composers Mark Fish and Durwynne Hsieh, commissioning, performing and editing their work, most notably premiering Hsieh's Concerto for Marimba, Violin and Orchestra with the Marin Symphony. With pianist Irene Jacobson, the Shinozaki-Jacobson Duo has delighted audiences with an eclectic repertoire and interpretations cited as "scintillating" and "in perfect harmony," resulting in the release of their first recording for the Latin American Chamber Music Society. Rick is a protégé of Serban Rusu of Tiburon; he also studied extensively with legendary pedagogue Josef Gingold and Yuval Yaron at Indiana University, from which he holds a Master of Music degree.

Charlton Lee
violist, has performed throughout North America and Europe both as a chamber musician and soloist. He founded the award-winning Del Sol String Quartet, which specializes in contemporary music and mixed-media productions, in 1992 at the renowned Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. He is sought after as an educator, chamber music coach, and jurist, with teaching experience at San Francisco State University, San Francisco School of the Arts, Steamboat Springs and Oaxaca music festivals, and he coaches regularly for Chamber Musicians of Northern California and the Symphony of the Redwoods. Charlton also teams up with his wife, Eva-Maria Zimmermann, to perform duo pieces for viola and piano. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics and Physics from the University of California at Berkeley and his Master’s degree in Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Kathryn Bates Williams
cellist, hailed by the New York Times as "a cellist with a beautifully rounded sound," has a passionate commitment to her art form by embracing tradition while exploring innovation in all genres of performance. She has served as the cellist of the New Fromm Players at the Tanglewood Music Center, where her performances have been called "the revelation of the concert" and "electrifying" (Boston Globe). After working with various new music ensembles, including the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Ensemble Parallèle, Kathryn co-founded the New Spectrum Ensemble to bridge the gap between contemporary and standard repertoire and break down the barrier between audience and performer. A native of historic Concord, Massachusetts, Kathryn received her B.M. degree from Rice University Shepherd School of Music, under the direction of Norman Fischer, and Master's degree in Chamber Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Mark Kosower and Jean-Michel Fonteneau.

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