Del Sol String Quartet

Fascinated by the feedback loop between social change, technology, and artistic innovation, the San Francisco-based Del Sol Quartet is a leading force in 21st-century chamber music. They believe that live music can, and should, happen anywhere – whether introducing Ben Johnston’s microtonal Americana at the Library of Congress or in a canyon cave, taking Aeryn Santillan’s gun-violence memorial to the streets of the Mission District, or collaborating with Huang Ruo and the anonymous Chinese poets who carved their words into. the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station.

Since 1992, Del Sol has commissioned or premiered thousands of works by composers including Terry Riley, Gabriela Lena Frank, Tania León, Frederic Rzewski, Vijay Iyer, Mason Bates, Michael Harrison, Huang Ruo, Pamela Z, Chinary Ung, Chen Yi, Erberk Eryilmaz, Theresa Wong, Reza Vali and Kui Dong. The quartet works regularly with composers through workshops, universities, as well as Del Sol commissioning and incubator programs. They especially value their ongoing relationship with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music in Boonville, CA.

Del Sol’s tenth album “Kooch-e Khamân” released in Feburary 2021, featuring 7 new works by young Iranian composers and charting #5 on Billboard. The 2021-2022 season features two large-scale premieres : “The Angel Island Project,” an immigration-themed oratorio by ChineseAmerican composer Huang Ruo, and “Between Worlds of Sound”, a collaboration with North Indian musicians Alam Khan & Arjun Verma. In October 2021, Del Sol will release a world premiere recording of Huang Ruo’s quartet meditation “A Dust in Time”, as an album with a companion coloring book.

Samuel Weiser, violin
Benjamin Kreith, violin
Charlton Lee, viola
Kathryn Bates