Quartet infuses rock into classical music

Just as the final echoes of last week's Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer performance are fading from Page Auditorium, another group of Grammy Award-winning crossover stars are preparing to take the stage: the Turtle Island String Quartet.

Now stop. Before you dismiss them as just another bunch of tuxedo-wearing Bach aficionados, consider this: reared on a steady diet of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Dave Brubeck, the members of this chamber group decided long ago to embrace the improvisational solos contained in much of their favorite music.

The quartet has made a name for itself over the past 20 years by composing and arranging jazz tunes for strings-an idea that cellist and founding member Mark Summer admits seemed far-fetched at its inception. When violinist David Balakrishnan approached him with the idea in 1985, "I looked at him like he was insane," he said. Surprisingly, the idea has since caught on, even among classical players who sometimes resist departure from tradition.

"We've found that classical musicians, in a certain sense, are dying to improvise," Summer said, noting that during the Baroque period, improvisation was a much bigger part of the classical tradition than it has been over the last 200 years.

The group's infusion of soloing into classical music is part of a larger resurgence of crossover music-from the likes of Yo-Yo Ma and the Kronos Quartet-that combine classical with other genres such as jazz, rock and folk. Summer says it's a case of today's players going with what they know.

"If you grew up listening to rock 'n' roll and jazz-even if you're a classical musician-it seems natural that you'd want to try it on your instrument," he said.

This blend of styles can lead to a much more lighthearted and interactive experience for the audience, in contrast to the usually somber aura of a classical performance, Summer said.

"In the United States, string quartets are thought of as being out of touch and stuffy-so we play off of that," he said. "People come expecting to hear Hayden, Mozart or Beethoven, and here's this great improvising and soloing up a storm. That's always been an exciting thing for us."