Del Sol’s relationship with Susan Moffat began as a chance encounter at a spontaneous street performance during the pandemic. In this bonus episode, hear how that meeting blossomed into impactful collaborations at the Albany Bulb and Angel Island, and an entire curriculum of programming at UC Berkeley, A Year on Angel Island.

Susan highlights the broader educational and emotional impacts of these collaborations, including initiatives to connect students with their heritage and history through immersive art experiences (in which Charlton’s daughter participated!). Susan says the students learned that “ they can create knowledge and they can create art. And that the art can be both a way of asking questions and also of sharing the knowledge that they've gained with other people.”

Enriched by Susan’s multifaceted work in creating inclusive and sustainable urban spaces, this conversation explores how art not only reflects but transforms our understanding of history, place, and human connections.

A Year on Angel Island at UC Berkeley

Love the Bulb

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This episode is a bonus from the "Angel Island" season of Sounds Current. If you haven't already, we encourage you to go back to "Part 1: A Haunting History" and listen to the full 4-part story. Sounds Current is produced and edited by The Creative Impostor Studios and hosted by Charlton Lee.

This is for young artists, musicians, new ensembles, and anyone seeking to take on bigger or more complex projects in their creative work!

Emiko Ono is the Director, Performing Arts Program at The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. And it is safe to say that without the Hewlett Foundation’s 50 Arts Commission, there may never have BEEN an Angel Island Oratorio.

In this short excerpt, Charlton and Emiko are discussing the creative process and offering insight based on their own experiences for aspiring artists who are in pursuit of funding and resources in order to realize their vision.

Visit Hewlett.org to learn more about programs and grants in areas such as:

• gender equity and governance,

• climate change,

• strengthening democracy,

• advancing education for all,

• community-led conservation in the North American West, and

• meaningful artistic experiences in communities across the Bay Area.

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This episode is a bonus from the "Angel Island" season of Sounds Current. If you haven't already, we encourage you to go back to "Part 1: A Haunting History" and listen to the full 4-part story. Sounds Current is produced and edited by The Creative Impostor Studios and hosted by Charlton Lee.

“My hope is not to divide, but to bring people together. Because only when we know about the history, then we can see our present and can learn [from] mistakes and to do better.” So says composer and conductor Huang Ruo on his vision for Angel Island.

This bonus is Charlton’s full conversation with Huang Ruo recorded in a friend’s apartment in New York, during the 2024 Next Wave Festival, co-presented by Brooklyn Academy of Music and Prototype Festival.

Follow the evolution of our collaboration from the first time we met, through the dark times of the COVID pandemic, all the way to New York.

Learn more about Huang Ruo’s work at HuangRuo.com, including the world premiere of his new opera, The Monkey King, written with David Henry Hwang at San Francisco Opera in November 2025.

A Dust In Time, written by Huang Ruo & performed by Del Sol Quartet

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This episode is a bonus from the "Angel Island" season of Sounds Current. If you haven't already, we encourage you to go back to "Part 1: A Haunting History" and listen to the full 4-part story. Sounds Current is produced and edited by The Creative Impostor Studios and hosted by Charlton Lee.

We’re going on tour in March 2025!

We’ll be engaging in performances and residencies in Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri, and Iowa CIty, Iowa.

And in April we’ll be at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

Check out our calendar for more details at Calendar — Del Sol Quartet

How do we learn from the past to change the future?

This bonus is an excerpt of Charlton’s interview with Matthew Ozawa, stage director for the New York premiere of Angel Island at BAM produced by Beth Morrison Productions.

In this clip, Matthew shares how his first experience on Angel Island and personal family history inspired the staging of the Prototype Festival staging. And Charlton describes how this project has shifted his own relationship to the energy of the Immigration Station detention barracks.

As Matthew says, “This is now gonna exist for all times, for so many generations and people to experience, to think about, to learn about their history in a way that pre this piece, probably people didn't even know about... And this is why we make art.”

Matthew has some exciting productions on the horizon for 2025 including Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with Pittsburgh Opera in March and with Utah Opera in May.

You can follow Matthew’s work at matthewozawa.com.

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This episode is a bonus from the "Angel Island" season of Sounds Current. If you haven't already, we encourage you to go back to "Part 1: A Haunting History" and listen to the full 4-part story. Sounds Current is produced and edited by The Creative Impostor Studios and hosted by Charlton Lee.

One of the complexities of Angel Island by Huang Ruo is that vocal parts are alternately in English and Chinese. For American choral groups, who are familiar with practicing Italian, German, French, and Latin diction, Chinese is not a common language with which they often have experience. And for this project, it was important to get it right.

This bonus is an excerpt of Charlton’s interview with Sidney Chen of Volti. Volti is the vocal ensemble that was instrumental in the development and world premiere of Angel Island.

In this clip, they are discussing the nuances of Chinese language, phonetics, and coaching the ensemble through the oratorio’s text.

They also share stories about both Charlton’s and Sid’s personal relationship to learning Mandarin Chinese.

Volti has an exciting calendar of music events planned for 2025, including a new commission from LJ White with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble in January and February and a program dedicated to “environmentalism in music” in June. Learn more at www.voltisf.org.

And see what Sid Chen is up to at sidneychenarts.com.

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, recorded and edited by Suraya Mohamed.

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This episode is a bonus from the "Angel Island" season of Sounds Current. If you haven't already, we encourage you to go back to "Part 1: A Haunting History" and listen to the full 4-part story. Sounds Current is produced and edited by The Creative Impostor Studios and hosted by Charlton Lee.

Hear our behind the scenes conversation about producing the award-winning season 1 of Sounds Current with our producer and editor, Andrea Klunder, from her podcast The Creative Impostor.

But, wait! This episode isn’t just about creating a podcast.

It’s about the joys and tension of being part of a chamber ensemble, pushing yourself to do something new in order to move society, and making art that means something valuable even when, and especially if, it doesn’t make sense economically.

Oh and you will hear us mention briefly the Yampa River trip and the Pandemic Joy project, though we don’t go into detail. If you want to learn more about these and other Del Sol projects past and present, please visit DelSolQuartet.com.

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The word “departure” generally refers to the physical act of leaving a place. However, departure also indicates a deviation from one’s traditional course of action or way of thinking.

As we close out this season of Sounds Current, Charlton and esteemed collaborators reflect on their experiences related to the development and subsequent productions of Angel Island. How have the music, the conversations, and their experiences on Angel Island shaped their understanding of the current immigration debate in the US and beyond? How has being a part of the project affected their personal narratives and understanding of family history? And what does the future hold for this project as a whole?

And how is the audience receiving the piece? For the first time in this series, we hear immediate reactions..

Part 4 Features:

Matthew Ozawa, Stage Director, New York premiere of Angel Island

Andi Wong, Teaching Artist and Arts Advocate

Genny Lim, Poet, Playwright, Performer, and Pioneer

Casey Dexter-Lee, State Park Interpreter II for Angel Island

Susan Moffat, Principal, Future Histories Studio

Huang Ruo, Composer, Angel Island

Ben Kreith, Del Sol Quartet violinist

Kathryn Bates, Del Sol Quartet cellist

Hyeyung Sol Yoon, Del Sol Quartet violinist

Sidney Chen, Singer, Volti San Francisco

Ed Tepporn, Executive Director, Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

And numerous audience members from the Next Wave Festival, co-presented by Brooklyn Academy of Music and Prototype Festival, Produced by Beth Morrison Projects in association with Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Featured Music Provided By:

Meilina Tsui

Byron Au Yong

Theresa Wong

Timo Chen

Taylor Ho Bynum

Erika Oba

Juri Seo

Order Huang Ruo’s A Dust in Time here, listen in Spotify or your favorite music streaming service.

The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation invites you to Immigrant Voices, a growing archive of personal stories of Pacific Coast immigrants. Explore here.

LEARN MORE:

https://www.delsolquartet.com/podcast

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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.