Ensemble-in-residence, China Now Music Festival

Del Sol began as a thought on the night shift at Fermilab. Charlton Lee loved the cutting edge of physics research – always looking for the next discovery, pushing boundaries. But he missed the way music connected people, building community by communicating in ways physics never would. What if he could bring that scientific passion for exploration to a string quartet?

Twenty-six years later, Del Sol is still sharing music that brings out the endorphins. Music that asks why not?

Fascinated by the feedback loop between social change, technology, and artistic innovation, the San Francisco-based ensemble is a leading force in 21st century chamber music - whether introducing Ben Johnston’s microtonal Americana at the Library of Congress, taking Aeryn Santillan’s gun-violence memorial to the streets of the Mission District, exploring Andean soundscapes with Gabriela Lena Frank and traditional musicians, or collaborating with Huang Ruo and the anonymous poets who carved their words into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station during the years of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The current Del Sol lineup, marked by the arrival of violinist Sam Weiser alongside mainstays Kathryn Bates and Ben Kreith, bring a fresh energy, freedom, and precision to the group.

Recognized as a “vigorous champion of living composers”, Del Sol has premiered hundreds of works by composers including Terry Riley, Gabriela Lena Frank, Frederic Rzewski, Ben Johnston, Chinary Ung, Mason Bates, Tania León, Erberk Eryilmaz, Theresa Wong, Reza Vali, Mohammed Fairouz and Peter Sculthorpe.

With its deep commitment to education, Del Sol has reached thousands of K-12 students through inventive school performances, workshops, coaching, and residencies. The Quartet members also have worked closely with student composers, musicians and faculty artists at universities across the country.

Helen Zhibing Huang ‘15 is a Chinese-born soprano and a graduate of the Bard Vocal Arts Program. She was recently described as “impressive” (The New York Times) after her compelling portrayal of Pamina in The Magic Flute for The Glimmerglass Festival.

This season Miss Huang will sing the role of Amour in Orphée with Washington Concert Opera, as well as Setsuko in An American Dream with Kentucky Opera. Last summer, she was seen at The Glimmerglass Festival as Pamina in The Magic Flute, and as La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Her 2019-2020 season included the role of Singa Loh in the world premiere of Jorge Sosa’s I Am a Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams with White Snake Projects, as well as making concert and operatic debuts in Europe at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Australia. Previously she joined Glimmerglass Festival as Almirena in Handel’s Rinaldo, and Nashville Opera’s Mary Ragland Emerging Artist Program, performing Countess

Ceprano and the Page, as well as covering Gilda in Rigoletto, and performing Flora in The Turn of the Screw.

Miss Huang’s other operatic credits include Baby Doe in The Ballad of Baby Doe, Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Amor in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Serpetta in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, La fée in Massenet’s Cendrillon, Poppea in Handel’s Agrippina, Carolina in Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto, and Flora in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. A strong advocate for new music, she has participated in workshops for operas including Paola Prestini’s Gilgamesh, Julian Wachner’s REV. 23, and Leanna Kirchoff’s Friday After Friday. Her concert credits include Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhornand Symphony No. 4, and Earl Kim’s Where Grief Slumbers.

David Henry Hwang’s stage works includes the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, Chinglish, Kung Fu, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the Broadway musicals Elton John & Tim Rice’s Aida (co-author), Flower Drum Song (2002 revival) and Disney’s Tarzan. Hwang is a Tony Award winner and three-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, a Grammy Award winner who has been twice nominated, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

Called America’s most-produced living opera librettist by Opera News, he has written five works with composer Philip Glass and is a 2006 Grammy Award winner for Ainadamar, with music by Osvaldo Golijov. Hwang has also worked with composers Bright Sheng, Unsuk Chin, and Howard Shore. His upcoming opera with composer Huang Ruo, The Rift, will premiere in spring 2022 at Washington National Opera in D.C.

Hwang co-wrote the Gold Record “Solo” with the late pop icon Prince and was a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair from 2015-2019. He is currently creating a TV series for Netflix and penning the live-action musical feature film The Hunchback of Notre Dame for Disney Studios as well as a movie to star actress Gemma Chan.

Hwang serves as Head of Playwriting at Columbia University School of the Arts and sits on the Board of the American Theatre Wing, where he recently completed a term as Chair. His latest work, Soft Power, written with composer Jeanine Tesori, premiered at Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre, where it won six 2018 Ovation Awards. Its subsequent run at the Public Theatre in NYC received four 2020 Outer Critics Honors, a 2020 Grammy nomination for Best Musical Theatre Album and was a Finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

Jin Hi Kim, a Guggenheim composer fellow and innovative komungo performer, co-designed the world’s only electric komungo with custom designed computer programs. Her work reflects the duality of her ancient Korean roots and contemporary American society with interdisciplinary works merging Asian mythology and advanced Western technology. The Washington Post wrote, “Her unique vision blends science fiction images, state-of-the-art technology, ancient mythology and timeless music and dance traditions. No other artist is doing work quite like this, and she does it with superb style."

In recent years she has created works with deep concerns about political, environmental, and social issues impacting our lives. Responding to American wars in Asia, she has composed “One Sky II” for Orchestra, dedicated to the reunification of Korea (2018) and “Child of War” for Chorus, dedicated to Kim Phuc who is known as ‘the girl in the picture’ during the Vietnam War (2014). She created “Sound Calendar of the Year 2018” documenting sounds and mix of the year’s environmental catastrophes, and “A Ritual for Covid-19” attempting to heal the epochal year of 2020.

Kim has received Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and won the Wolff Ebermann Prize at the International Theater Institute, Germany. She was Fulbright Specialist to Vietnam, and McKnight Visiting Composer with the American Composers Forum. She is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts, American Composers Orchestra fellowship as well as fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Italy, Asian Cultural Council, and Freeman Artist-In-Residence at Cornell University. She is Adjunct Professor of Music at Wesleyan University.

In the 2019-2020 season Nina Yoshida Nelsen made her Portland Opera debut as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She also performed the world premiere of Blood Moon at Prototype Festival in New York City. Nina returned to Chicago Lyric Opera to cover Suzuki in Madama Butterfly and appeared with the Santa Barbara Symphony to perform Beethoven's Mass in C. and sang the role of Fricka in Santa Barbara Opera’s Das Rheingold. She also reprised the role of Khanh in Huang Ruo's opera Bound at Juilliard. In October 2021 she makes a delayed debut with Boston Lyric Opera as Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria rusticana and sings the mother in Ruo’s An American Soldier at Bard and at Jazz at Lincoln Center. A return to Santa Barbara for Frugola in Puccini’s Il Tabarro and as the soloist in El Amor Brujo by de Falla, a debut with Chicago Opera Theater in December, in a new Mark Adamo work, Becoming Santa Claus, will be followed by a video recording of Boston Lyric Opera’s Madama Butterfly in February and a debut in March 2022 with Kentucky Opera in An American Dream.

In the 2018-2019 season, Nina made her Lyric Opera Chicago debut as Mama in Jack Perla's An American Dream. She also reprised the same role at Anchorage Opera. Nina returned to Opera Santa Barbara as Tituba in The Crucible and sang in their 25th Anniversary Gala concert.

In the 2017-2018 season, Ms. Nelsen returned to Seattle Opera singing the role of Mama in An American Dream. She also made a company debut with Manitoba Opera singing Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She performed Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer with the Grand Junction and Flagstaff Symphony Orchestras and returned to both the Santa Barbara and Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestras to perform the alto solos in Mozart's Requiem.

In the 2016-2017 season, Nina returned to the Santa Barbara Symphony as the Alto Soloist in Beethoven Symphony #9 and debuted with the Guelph Symphony Orchestra as the Mezzo Soloist in the Verdi Requiem. In the 2014-2015 season, Nina was thrilled to return to Utah Opera to perform Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She then made her debut singing the same role with The Atlanta Opera. She also sang Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Southwest Florida Symphony. Nina made her Seattle Opera mainstage debut summer 2015 singing the role of Mama in the world premiere of An American Dream.

Music Director: Leon Botstein

The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a group of vibrant young musicians from across the globe who are making orchestral music relevant to 21st-century audiences by sharing their unique personal insights in a welcoming environment. Hand-picked from the world’s leading conservatories—including The Juilliard School, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and the Curtis Institute of Music—the members of TŌN are enlightening curious minds by giving on-stage introductions and demonstrations, writing concert notes from the musicians’ perspective, and having one-on-one discussions with patrons during intermissions. Conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein founded TŌN in 2015 as a graduate program at Bard College, where he is also president. The orchestra’s home base is the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center at Bard, where they perform multiple concerts each season and take part in the annual Bard Music Festival. Learn more at theorchestranow.org

Proving himself a formidable talent and a rising star to watch in the opera world, tenor Yi Li is quickly gaining attention across the globe. Li introduced the role of Cheng Quing in Meredith Monk’s ATLAS with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and moved into the role of Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West in Maryland Lyric Opera’s inaugural season. He returned there as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor and Turiddu/Luigi in Il tabarro/Cavalleria rusticana, as well as performing at the Metropolitan Opera as the Young Lover in Il tabarro.

Other operatic engagements include the role of Nadir in Les pêcheurs de perles with Toledo Opera; Nicias in Thaïs and Cassio in Otello with the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing; Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with the Intermountain Opera Bozeman, Nashville Opera, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; and Alfredo in La traviata with Finger Lakes Opera. He also per- formed in Huang Ruo’s contemporary opera, Paradise Interrupted. A graduate of Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, his assignments included Rodolfo in La bohème and pro- ductions of Die Zauberflöte and Dialogues des Carmélites.