Here Comes the Sun

It’s not every day that you see polka-dotted ladybug rain boots at a classical-music concert. Much less a concert that features two world-premiere chamber works. But then the Del Sol String Quartet is serious about keeping its music not only contemporary, but decidedly accessible.

The wayward tyke wandering the back of the Pt. Reyes Dance Palace—a community center in the Northern California coastal town of Pt. Reyes Station (pop. 350), just 40 or so miles north of San Francisco—set the tone, at least for the Sunday, May 2 afternoon concert.

Most of the audience dressed casually, many in running shoes and hiking boots. And the mood was West Marin County relaxed, as is befitting an area where the ’60s counterculture and local ranchers have come together to create a lifestyle that blends the arts and the art of living. But the 35 people in the audience took the music as seriously as the Del Sols, fully aware how special it is for a world-class ensemble to travel to a tiny town to play important new works.

If you’re already familiar with the Del Sol String Quartet—violinists Kate Stenberg and Rick Shinozaki; violist Charlton Lee, and cellist Hannah Addario-Berry—then you know why Gramophone magazine has hailed them as “masters of all things musical . . . playing with a combination of ferocious attack, riveting interplay, and silken splendor.”

If not, you should check them out.

The ensemble enjoys residencies at both the forward-thinking Other Minds Festival in San Francisco and San Francisco State University, where they share a residency with the fine Alexander String Quartet. That latter arrangement is a marriage made in heaven, since the Del Sols are avid advocates for contemporary music and the Alexanders are acknowledged experts of Haydn, Mozart and other standard repertoire.

The program opened with an impressionistic art song, “Gondola” (2007), by Canadian transplant Linda Catlin Smith, before the world premiere of Korean-American composer Paul Yeon Lee’s “Ari, Ari . . . ari” (2009), which received its first public performance. The Lee piece is one that deserves many more performances; it is built upon a pentatonic-scale Korean folk melody and blessed with gorgeous Gershwin-esque harmonies. It’s a perfect example of how lyrical and richly textured a modern work can be—indeed, ari means “beautiful” or “lovely” in the Korean language.

The second half of the concert introduced another new work: “Esencia,” the first string quartet by acclaimed Cuban composer Tania Leon. The title of the work translates to “Essence” and the piece has three movement inspired by fragrant scents that are found in Cuban home life. Musically, Leon has eschewed obvious Latin rhythms in favor of passages marked by playful pizzicato and tricky portamento. Quite striking.

To close the show, the Del Sols delivered a powerful and emotionally charged reading of Philip Glass’ transcendent String Quartet No. 5 (1991), infusing even the heavy scale work of the fifth movement with passion.

Quite a splash for a handful of people gathered on a rainy afternoon in a cow town that cultivates culture as well as artisan cheeses.