Welcome to Angel Island. With stunning views of San Francisco Bay and lush hiking trails, the island is nestled between the promise of the Golden Gate Bridge and California’s sun-soaked mainland coast. But between 1910 and 1940, hundreds of thousands of Asians arriving at the Angel Island Immigration Station faced separation, interrogation, and often deportation under the longstanding Chinese Exclusion Act.

The ghosts of Angel Island, however, endure. Poems carved into the soft wooden walls of the detention barracks give voice to long-remembered frustration, humiliation, and loneliness of the immigrants detained there. These inscriptions in Chinese calligraphy link that shameful past to our present immigration debate, bringing history into the reality of our current lives.

In Part One, violist and founding member of the Del Sol Quartet, Charlton Lee, introduces both Angel Island's history and the creatives behind The Angel Island Project. A collaboration between Del Sol and composer Huang Ruo, this haunting oratorio for string quartet and chamber choir weaves together poetry and music in a poignant, powerful expression of history, hope, and humanity.

Part One features: Charlton Lee, Del Sol Quartet violist; Huang Ruo, Composer and conductor; Kathryn Bates, Del Sol Quartet cellist; Hyeyung Sol Yoon, Del Sol Quartet violinist; Ben Kreith, Del Sol Quartet violinist; Ed Tepporn, Executive Director, Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation; Andi Wong, Teaching Artist and Arts Advocate; and Genny Lim, Poet, Playwright, Performer, Pioneer.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Huang Ruo

Angel Island Immigration Station

Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Immigrant Voices Oral History Project

Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island

Genny Lim

The Last Hoisan Poets

ArtsEd4All

The Chinese Historical Society Of America

William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

UC Berkeley Global Urban Humanities Initiative

LEARN MORE

https://www.delsolquartet.com/podcast

Del Sol Quartet on Spotify

Facebook

Instagram

YouTube

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: Charlton Lee

Executive Producers: Andrea Fellows Fineberg, Don Fineberg

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.

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.

***

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

Del Sol Quartet on Spotify

Facebook

Instagram

YouTube

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.