Del Sol began as a thought on the night shift at Fermilab. Charlton Lee, in his pre-viola days, loved the cutting edge of physics research – always looking for the next discovery, pushing boundaries. But he missed the way music connected people, building community by communicating in ways physics never would. What if he could bring that scientific passion for exploration to a string quartet? Twenty-six years later, we are still sharing music that brings out the endorphins. Music that asks why not?

Program:

Ben Johnston - String Quartet no. 10

Michael Harrison - Mureed

Erberk Eryilmaz - Hoppa! İki

(intermission)

Aaron Garcia - Makeshift Memorials

Ben Johnston - String Quartet no. 4 (Amazing Grace)

Celebrating Ben Johnston, “our best non-famous composer” (Mark Swed)

…the deceptively simple and direct-seeming American folk hymn “Amazing Grace,” generating variations of steadily increasing rhythmic and microtonal profusion, always securely grounded in new-old once more frontier-fresh modal tonality capable of wide proportional spaces: new reaches of consonance and metrical intricacy which push the boundaries of intelligible complexity beyond horizons conceivable in the confines of conventional tuning. (Ben Johnston)

And other favorite non-famous composers who, like Johnston, bring us together by stretching our ears and imaginations: Michael Harrison’s revelatory Just-Intonation harmonies, Erberk Eryilmaz’s folkdances-without-borders, and Aaron Garcia’s screamo memorial to gun-violence.