Holiday music from around the world to be featured in Malmgren Concert Series Solstice Celebration Dec. 11

Holiday music from around the world to be featured in Malmgren Concert Series Solstice Celebration Dec. 11November 29, 2005Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

The Turtle Island String Quartet (TISQ) will perform sacred and secular holiday music from diverse traditions around the world during the first concert of the 2005-06 Esther Drake and John Vincent Malmgren Concert Series at Syracuse University.

The Dec. 11 concert, “A Solstice Celebration with the Turtle Island String Quartet,” will begin at 4 p.m. in Hendricks Chapel and is free and open to the public. Free parking is available in the Irving Garage.

Since its inception in 1985, TISQ has been a singular force in the creation of bold new trends in chamber music for strings. The quartet fuses the classical quartet aesthetic with contemporary music styles, devising a performance practice that honors both. TISQ has taken forays through folk, bluegrass, swing, be-bop, funk, rock and hip-hop, as well as the music of Latin America and India.

The quartet has a repertoire of hundreds of arrangements and originals, has over a dozen label recordings and has recorded with artists such as Paquito D’Rivera and The Manhattan Transfer. Quartet members are David Balakrishnan and Evan Price, (violins), Mads Tolling (viola) and Mark Summer (cello).

The Malmgren Concert Series was made possible by a gift to Hendricks Chapel from alumna Esther Drake Malmgren ’42, in 1991. The free Sunday afternoon concerts, held throughout the year, feature a vide variety of music. Upcoming concerts in the spring semester include organist Jonathan Ryan performing in a Rising Star concert (Feb. 26); vocal music for Palm Sunday by the Concord Ensemble (April 9); and organist Dame Gillian Weir (April 23).

Call Hendricks Chapel at 443-2901 for more information.