TURTLE ISLAND QUARTET

09.01.10
The American Evolution: Turtle Island Quartet marks 25 years on the cutting edge of chamber jazz

08.02.10
Baylin Artists Selected to Showcase at Fall 2010 Conferences
Turtle Island, Luna Negra and Viver Brasil were selected to showcase at fall conferences

09.06.10
Matt Haimovitz
Moab Music Festival
Moab, UT

09.09.10
Luna Negra Dance Theater
Buena Vista University
Storm Lake, IA

09.11.10
Alex de Grassi
Sunnyvale Theatre
Sunnyvale, CA

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Turtle Island Quartet: A Moment's Notice

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Turtle Island Tree of Life- 10-11

Turtle Island takes its name from renowned beat poet Gary Snyder’s Pulitzer Prize winning book of the same name, itself titled after an English translation of many Native American tribes’ terms for North America. In the preamble, Snyder points out that so-called ‘American culture’ owes its derivation to immigrants from all over the world. For a string quartet to be considered quintessentially American, it follows that the core repertoire would be drawn from the proto world music genre that has come to be universally acknowledged as America’s classical music—jazz—and that the members themselves would be equally grounded in classical and jazz performance practices. 

This program will draw from Turtle Island’s signature collection of jazz masterpieces by composers such as Chick Corea, Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, Dave Brubeck, Thelonius Monk, Paquito D’Rivera, Bill Evans, Ralph Towner, Herbie Hancock, and Stanley Clarke, not to mention traditional music of all sorts, from R&B to Bluegrass, Celtic to Carnatic, J.S. Bach to Jimi Hendrix. It will also feature selections from Turtle Island founding composer/violinist David Balakrishnan’s large scale work Tree Of Life integrating jazz, western classical, American folk, Latin American and Indian classical music—in short, a compendium of cross-genre exploration that Turtle Island has come to stand for in its twenty five years of existence. In keeping with the jazz tradition, the Turtle Island members will announce the program from the stage during the course of the concert.