Turtle Island Quartet

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 thematic pieces from the bebop era and beyond such as Sonny Rollins’ Airegin, Miles Ahead by Gil Evans/Miles Davis, and Subconscious-Lee by Lee Konitz. Grammy-nominated composer David Balakrishnan contributes his newly commissioned work, Aeroelasticity: Harmonies Of Impermanence.*

Turtle Island draws its primary focus and musical identity from the individual creative voices of the ensemble who are at home in folk, pop and jazz. It continues to recalibrate the foundational parameters of the traditional string quartet form, in a sense coming from the other direction.

Alex Hargreaves, Violin
David Balakrishnan Violin
Benjamin von Gutzeit, Viola
Malcolm Parson, Cello


*Aeroelasticity: Harmonies Of Impermanence is made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund.