Toe-tapping jazz, funk and rock 'n' roll was not what a couple hundred teenagers expected to hear from a string quartet Friday. Alyssa Lee, an eighth-grade L.J. Allmean Arts Academy student, expected her class would be listening to classical music on its field trip to see the Turtle Island Quartet at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. "When I heard them I didn't know it was strings, because of all the different types of techniques and sounds," Alyssa, 13, said. The quartet was made up of a ... Read More

Music Review Unplugging the Hendrix Experience By ALLAN KOZINN Published: March 3, 2011 In 1969 David Balakrishnan, then a teenage violin student, attended a Jimi Hendrix concert in Los Angeles that led him to reconsider his approach to his instrument, and to music more broadly. He began learning some of Hendrix’s guitar solos on the violin, and he decided that his repertory should embrace both classical music and pop. As a composer he extended that philosophy to his own music. Mr. ... Read More

THE BIG CITY Songs For Strings Lovers Posted on February 2, 2011 by George Grella There’s some tendency to marvel at the novelty of certain instruments in genres outside of their origins, or common sighting; look, there’s an accordion in that jazz band! (Although I will admit that Matthew Welch is still a surprise, and his music is fine). But these instruments tend to be ones that have been used for popular music genres for a long, long time, and it’s the era of recorded, electric music that is ... Read More

Examiner.com - San Francisco The Turtle Island Quartet has been giving concerts under the auspices of San Francisco Performances (SFP) since 1991 (back when they were known as the “Turtle Island String Quartet”); so an SFP gig at Herbst Theatre offered the most appropriate venue for their 25th Anniversary Concert. Furthermore, as Brent Assink, Executive Director of the San Francisco Symphony, said of the Symphony’s centennial season, when you have a big birthday, you want to invite all of ... Read More