“Modern,” “dramatic,” “superb,” “wickedly attentive,” “with a hint of rock ‘n roll energy” are just a few ways critics describe the musical phenomenon that is the St Lawrence String Quartet. The SLSQ is renowned for the intensity of its performances, its breadth of repertoire, and its commitment to concert experiences that are at once intellectually exciting and emotionally alive.  Recent highlights include performances with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic and Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony in John Adams’s Absolute Jest for string quartet and orchestra, and the European premieres of Adams’s second string quartet. Fiercely committed to collaboration with living composers, the SLSQ’s fruitful partnership with Adams, Jonathan Berger, Osvaldo Golijov and many others has yielded some of the finest additions to the quartet literature in recent years. The Quartet is also especially dedicated to the music of Haydn, and are recording his groundbreaking set of six Op. 20 quartets in high-definition video for a free, universal release online in 2018. According to the New Yorker, “…no other North American quartet plays the music of Haydn with more intelligence, expressivity, and force…”  Established in Toronto in 1989, the SLSQ quickly earned acclaim at top international chamber music competitions and was soon playing hundreds of concerts per year worldwide. It established an ongoing residency at Spoleto Festival USA, made prize-winning recordings for EMI of music by Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Golijov, earning two Grammy nominations and a host of other prizes before being appointed ensemble-in-residence at Stanford University in 1998.  At Stanford, the SLSQ is at the forefront of intellectual life on campus. The SLSQ directs the music department’s chamber music program, and frequently collaborates with other departments including the Schools of Law, Medicine, Business and Education. The Quartet frequently performs at Stanford Live, hosts an annual chamber music seminar, and runs the Emerging String Quartet Program through which it mentors the next generation of young quartets. In the words of Alex Ross of the New Yorker: “The St. Lawrence are remarkable not simply for the quality of their music making, exalted as it is, but for the joy they take in the act of connection.”

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St. Lawrence String Quartet

Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center

Cellist Nicholas Canellakis and pianist-composer Michael Brown have been hailed as “a pair of adventurous young talents” (Time Out New York) who “play with their antennae tuned to each other” (The Washington Post). Performing together throughout the world for more than a decade, they combine their unique talents to create a duo that combines masterpieces from the standard literature with original compositions and arrangements.  Canellakis and Brown are both artists with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. They are guest curators for series around the country including the 2021 Music@Menlo Winter Focus Residency, and at Chamber Music Sedona, where Canellakis is the Artistic Director. Both maintain active solo careers, performing recitals and concertos each season. Canellakis, hailed as a “superb young soloist” (The New Yorker), made his Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium debut as soloist with the American Symphony Orchestra. Brown, called a “young piano visionary,” is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was a 2018 Emerging Artist of Lincoln Center. Brown is also a critically acclaimed composer who has written many works for Canellakis, and for such organizations as the Maryland and New Haven symphonies, the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, and Poland’s NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra. Canellakis is also a filmmaker and actor. He and Brown produce and star in a comedy web series called “Conversations with Nick Canellakis,” in which they conduct satirical interviews with stars of the classical music world.

Canellakis-Brown Duo

Dizzy Spellz offers an Afro-futuristic lens exploring the intersection of cultural and spiritual dilemmas within the African Diaspora through the music of Dizzy Gillespie. From his coming of age through racial and social dynamics in the Deep South, creating and curating the bebop movement in New York, to his spiritual journey to Africa and his delve into Afro Cuban music and the Baha’i Faith, Dizzy was very much ahead of his time. Sean Jones (trumpeter/musical director) and Brinae Ali (choreographer/tap dancer/vocalist) have teamed up to create a piece that fuses elements of jazz, tap, Hip Hop, and BeBop to articulate the social vernacular of the African-American experience.

Sean Jones “Dizzy Spellz” featuring Brinae Ali

Price Center

Distinguished by its virtuosic playing and impassioned interpretations, the Ariel Quartet has earned its glowing international reputation. Formed in Israel nearly twenty years ago, the Quartet was recently awarded the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award. The Ariel serves as the Faculty Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, where they direct the rigorous chamber music program and perform their own annual series of concerts in addition to their busy touring schedule.  In honor of Beethoven’s sestercentennial in 2020, the Ariel Quartet will perform the complete Beethoven Cycle. This ArtPower exclusive video release includes six of the 16 Beethoven string quartets. The presentation of the complete Beethoven cycle concludes in 2021–22 season with a live performance by Ariel Quartet.

Ariel Quartet Beethoven Cycle, Final Concert

Founded by Ronald K. Brown in 1985 and based in Brooklyn, New York, EVIDENCE is a dance company that focuses on the seamless integration of traditional African dance with contemporary choreography and spoken word. Through his work Brown uses movement as a way to reinforce the importance of community in African American culture and to acquaint audiences with the beauty of traditional African forms and rhythms with his blended contemporary style. He has set works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and  many others. “I hope that when people see the work, their spirits are lifted. I am interested in sharing perspectives through modern dance, theater and kinetic storytelling. I want my work to be evidence of these perspectives,” says Brown. The company is thrilled to be returning to San Diego after a long hiatus and will share three works; audience favorites,  Upside Down and Grace, and its newest work The Equality of Night and Day (TEND).

Ronald K. Brown\EVIDENCE: Upside Down, Grace, and The Equality of Night and Day (TEND)

Balboa Theatre

Makaya McCraven is a beat scientist. The bleeding edge drummer, producer, and sonic collagist is one of Chicago’s savviest cultural players and a multi-talented force whose inventive process & intuitive, cinematic style defy categorization.  French-born but raised in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts by expatriate musician parents, McCraven studied Jazz at the University of Massachusetts Amherst under the mentorship of jazz luminaries Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, and Yusef Lateef, and eventually went on to develop his chops in Chicago’s burgeoning scene.  His breakthrough album In the Moment was released with International Anthem Recording Co. (IARC) in 2015 and received widespread acclaim, proving to be a dramatic statement by McCraven that quickly launched him into the vanguard of not only Internationally-known jazz artists, but also a niche genre of next-wave composer-producers blurring the boundaries of jazz & electronic music.  His recent releases, the DJ-style mixtape Highly Rare (IARC, 2017) as well as an internationally recorded Where We Come From (CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape) (IARC, 2018) have been well received globally, leading to increased bookings in some of the world’s best clubs, theaters, and festivals alongside the likes of Corey Wilkes, Bobby (Baabe) Irving (Miles Davis), Ari Brown, and Bernie Worrell.  McCraven is currently on tour and most recently released Universal Beings, a 2xLP album featuring an A-list of “new” jazz players from New York, Chicago, London & Los Angeles.

Makaya McCraven

Praised for their “huge range of dynamics, massive sound and spontaneity” (American Record Guide), the Viano String Quartet has received top prizes at several national and international competitions. Formed in 2015 at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, where they are Ensemble in Residence through the 2020-21 season, the quartet has performed in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, SOKA Performing Arts Center, the Cerritos Center for Performing Arts; and with artists such as Emanuel Ax, Elisso Virsaladze, Paul Coletti, Martin Beaver and vocalist Hila Plitman.  The name “Viano” was created to describe the four individual instruments in a string quartet interacting as one. Each of the four instruments begins with the letter “v”, and like a piano, all the strings working together as a string quartet, play both harmony and melody, creating a unified instrument, called the “Viano”.

Viano Quartet

Marc Ribot, who the New York Times describes as “a deceptively articulate artist who uses inarticulateness as an expressive device,” has released 25 albums under his own name over a 40-year career, exploring everything from the pioneering jazz of Albert Ayler to the Cuban son of Arsenio Rodríguez. His solo release,“Silent Movies”(Pi Recording 2010) has been described as a”down-in-mouth-near master piece” by the Village Voice and has landed on several Best of 2010 lists including the LA Times and critical praise across the board, and 2014 saw the monumental release: Marc Ribot Trio Live at the Village Vanguard(Pi Recordings), documenting Marc’s first headline and the return of Henry Grimes at the historical venue in 2012 and included onBest of 2014 lists such as Downbeat magazine and NPR’s 50 Favorites.  2021 is filed with a flurry of activity and releases including Ceramic Dog’s HOPE, recorded during the pandemic, plus two reissues on vinyl for the first time: 1993’s long out-of-print Marc Ribot Plays Solo Guitar Works of Frantz Casseus & Silent Movies (2010). Additionally, Marc’s first collection of writings, Unstrung: Rants & Stories of a Noise Guitarist, will be published by Akashic Books this August with an audiobook also in the works, and Marc’s original score for limited series documentary, Queen of Meth, will premiere on the Discovery Channel

Marc Ribot

If Kandace Springs‘ new album Indigo sounds like something new, that’s because it is. Simple while funky. Classic but contemporary. Straightforward in the way it breaks down complex ideas and genres. And, at the end of the day, undeniably human. That said, it isn’t quite a rebirth for the Nashville-born artist, who after stints living in New York and Los Angeles has returned back home to Music City. She’s long had that lithe and smoky voice and an intensely expressive mastery over the piano.   She sings from her latest album, The Women Who Raised Me, a loving tribute to the great female singers who inspired her to begin her journey towards becoming one of the premier jazz/soul vocalists of our time. The album will feature her unique interpretations of songs that she first heard growing up in Tennessee, and ranges from such classic icons as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Carmen McRae, through 60’s legends Nina Simone, and Dusty Springfield, and up to modern masters such as Sade and Lauryn Hill.

Kandace Springs

An Untitled Love is Kyle Abraham’s newest evening-length work. Drawing from the catalogue of Grammy Award-winning R&B legend D’Angelo, this creative exaltation pays homage to the complexities of self love and Black love, while serving as a thumping mixtape celebrating our culture, family, and community.

ArtPower at UC San Diego

May 13, 2022

St. Lawrence String Quartet

Apr 22, 2022

Canellakis-Brown Duo

Apr 14, 2022

Sean Jones “Dizzy Spellz” featuring Brinae Ali

Apr 1, 2022

Ariel Quartet Beethoven Cycle, Final Concert

Mar 2, 2022

Ronald K. Brown\EVIDENCE: Upside Down, Grace, and The Equality of Night and Day (TEND)

ArtPower at UC San Diego

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