Drawing from thirty-five years of performances and recordings, An Evening with Turtle Island Quartet includes a wide range of original music written and performed by artistic director, resident composer and violinist David Balakrishnan with violinist Gabriel Terracciano, violist Benjamin von Gutzeit and cellist Naseem Alatrash. The program will include Balakrishnan’s GRAMMY®-nominated “Confetti Man” and his recent composition “The Second Wave,” with occasional additions of the latest works by ... Read More
The two-time GRAMMY® winning Turtle Island Quartet parlays its own unique brand of jazz chamber brilliance to present a joyous concert of effervescent music making. The repertoire evokes visions of a frosty winter’s eve and year-end celebrations from around the globe. From ancient King Wren songs of the Celtic winter solstice and yuletide reels from Ireland, to Brazilian festive chorinho music, African Kora, tunes of Hannukah, slavic folk carols, a Hindu spiritual, and a Miles Davis holiday ... Read More
The instrumentation is recognizable to any aficionado of chamber music, that of the classic piano quintet. Renowned jazz master Cyrus Chestnut and the GRAMMY® winning Turtle Island Quartet continue their remarkable journey together as they traverse the myriad colors of jazz and beyond. The collaboration is infused with the global reach of gospel and sacred music- ranging from the Appalachian Mountains to the spiritually defined musical landscape of J.S. Bach. Dipping into the rhythms of world ... Read More
In this high flying program, the two-time GRAMMY® winning Turtle Island Quartet, pays homage to the incandescent visionary brilliance of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker. The genius of his improvisations almost single handedly catapulted jazz from pop style into art music, indelibly altering the musical landscape of America. Iconic Charlie Parker classics such as KoKo, A Night In Tunisia, and Dewey Square are juxtaposed with original responses by quartet members, and intertwined with other ... Read More
The extraordinary jazz pianist, Cyrus Chestnut, and the GRAMMY® winning Turtle Island Quartet are back together, displaying their formidable collective virtuosity. Making soulful and sweet connections that delve deeply into the jazz and classical traditions, the quintet embraces a range of composers on this brand new program- from Jelly Roll Morton to Thelonious Monk. Back when sheet music was the means of musical transmission, in the hands of composers like Debussy and Stravinsky, ragtime ... Read More
At first glance, the coming together of a string quartet and a guitar duo may seem like nothing more than an entertaining night on the town. But these two super-groups of the string world, both having irrevocably altered the face of their respective traditions, have something altogether different in mind. Think around the world in one evening of wild celebration, astounding virtuosity and deep beauty, from the lands of Africa and India to the Appalachian Mountains, to the rhythmic poetry of ... Read More
The Turtle Island Quartet and Ying Quartet collaboration features two dynamic string ensembles from opposite ends of the musical spectrum exploring the inner core and outer edges of their art form. The project was inspired by idle conversation between Phillip Ying and David Balakrishnan while they both were attending a Chamber Music America board meeting. The two groups had the opportunity to pursue the myriad possibilities in person during a subsequent Turtle Island engagement at Eastman ... Read More
Question: What do a well respected jazz pianist exploring the music of Elvis Presley and a string quartet that dares to attempt to recreate John Coltrane’s immortal A Love Supreme have in common? Answer: A desire to sift out golden nuggets of beauty and purity from the granite stratums of musical convention. Warner Brothers recording artist Cyrus Chestnut and the Grammy®-winning Turtle Island Quartet continue their grail-like quest in a program that matches a reinterpretation of Brahms ... Read More
The name Duke Ellington conjures the vision of a musical genius who guided one of the most well-known orchestral units in the history of jazz. As a pianist extraordinaire and worldwide ambassador for American music and jazz, Ellington composed scores of tunes and songs that were the biggest hits of his time and to this day retain a major role in the jazz canon. The Duke had a serious, spiritual side as well. The series of sacred music concerts that he gave near the end of his life feature ... Read More
One evening in November 1985 four young and adventurous string players sat down together at a friend’s home for a nice meal and some string quartet music. One would normally expect the standard fare of Mozart, Beethoven, and maybe some Mendelssohn, but these early intrepid explorers of the alternative string music world had entirely something else in mind. Starting off with Oliver Nelson’s classic jazz ballad “Stolen Moments,” proceeding into Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night In Tunisia,” and ... Read More