This was just one of several surprising delights on the evening’s program performed by the West-Coast based Del Sol String Quartet. Another was the concise but scintillating introduction that the composer Ken Ueno (who circled his neck with an orange scarf and made it look cool and not pretentious) gave to his work Peradam. He explained that his compositions are written specifically for the people who will play them. But it was the reasoning behind this that gave me the delightful shiver one feels when someone eloquent goes right to the essence of an idea. He takes rock music as his paradigm. Ueno loves the Rolling Stones, for example. But that does not mean he loves to hear a cover band play the songs of the Rolling Stones; there is no substitute. Thus, Peradam he wrote for the Del Sol String Quartet and only the Del Sol String Quartet, because its members have the unusually particular talent of being able to sing at the same time that they play—in particular, their violist does some mean gargling throat singing.

This multi-talented violist, Charlton Lee, proved to be the undeniable favorite of the evening. In every piece, his dynamic embrace of the alto part was captivating to hear and exciting to watch. He dug into the earthly power of his instrument... He did not hold back in reaching for a combination of the strange and beautiful, as he blended his voice with the transcendent meditative quality evoked in Peradam.

MORE PRESS REVIEWS