Turtle Island Quartet

Since its inception in 1985, the Turtle Island Quartet has been a singular force in the creation of bold, new trends in chamber music for strings. Winner of the 2006 and 2008 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Crossover Album, Turtle Island fuses the classical quartet aesthetic with contemporary American musical styles, and by devising a performance practice that honors both, the state of the art has inevitably been redefined. In its BlackRock debut, TIQ presents Birth of the Cool celebrating what became known as “Cool Jazz,” marked by the embodiment of cool, Miles Davis, along with his colleagues Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan, as well as the Modern Jazz Quartet and Dave Brubeck. In addition to their masterful jazz string quartet interpretations from the Birth of the Cool recording, Turtle Island offers a programs of perennial favorites such as Dave Brubeck’s Blue Rondo A La Turk, Gerry Mulligan’s Bernie’s Tune, Miles Davis’s dreamy Miles Ahead, and the Modern Jazz Quartet’s darker Django.