How does a string quartet help build community from Chinese immigrant poetry carved into detention-center walls on Angel Island? Let their words sing out after 100 years of silence.

Season 1 of Sounds Current with the Del Sol Quartet follows the quest to shine light on San Francisco’s Angel Island, a site of detention and dehumanization for Chinese immigrants in the 1900s. We travel with the creatives behind The Angel Island Project, including composer Huang Ruo, poet Genny Lim, educator Andi Wong and more. Sounds Current: Angel Island explores how we make compassionate art that builds community.

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San Francisco’s Del Sol Quartet believes that music can, and should, happen anywhere - screaming out Aeryn Santillan’s “Makeshift Memorials” from a Mission District sidewalk or a rural high school, bouncing Ben Johnston’s microtonal “Americana” off the canyon walls of the Yampa River or the hallowed walls of Library of Congress, bringing Huang Ruo’s “Angel Island Oratorio” home to the island detention barracks or across the Pacific to the Singapore International Arts Festival.

Since 1992, Del Sol has commissioned or premiered hundreds of works from diverse composers. Their performances provide the possibility for unexpected discovery, sparking dialogue and bringing people together.

CREDITS

Hosted by Charlton Lee

Produced by Andrea Klunder, The Creative Impostor Studios, Charlton Lee, Kathryn Bates, Hyeyung Sol Yoon, Ben Kreith

Story Editor: Andrea Klunder

Sound Design: Andrea Klunder

Technical Director & Post Production Audio: Edwin R. Ruiz

Field Producer & Recording Engineer: Kathryn Bates

Field Producer: Verena Lee

Podcast Manager: Alex Riegler

Show Notes: Lisa Widder

Cover Art: Felicia Lee

Theme Music: composed by Charlton Lee, performed by Del Sol Quartet

Executive Producers: Andrea Fellows Fineberg, Don Fineberg

LEARN MORE

https://www.delsolquartet.com/podcast

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Featured music from The Angel Island Oratorio composed by Huang Ruo. Performed by Del Sol Quartet & United States Air Force Band's Singing Sergeants / National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, recording and edited by Suraya Mohamed.