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Angel Island Part 2: A Truth To Be Told

Release Date: 06/24/2024

BONUS: Holding Each Other’s Stories, Discovering Some Truth with Genny Lim and Andi Wong

Sounds Current

Though Angel Island began with Del Sol Quartet’s collaboration with composer Huang Ruo, poet Genny Lim and arts educator Andi Wong are essential to everything the project has become and continues to be. We are thrilled to share that since the time of this podcast, Genny has been inaugurated as San Francisco poet Laureate. She's the first Chinese American to hold this position. In this bonus conversation with Genny and Andi, we tease our upcoming collaboration, Songs of the Diaspora, a multimedia performance that will premiere late 2025 with poetry by Genny Lim, and new music by Chinese...

BONUS: Building a Future of Inclusion and Belonging Amidst the Complexities of the Immigrant Experience with Ed Tepporn

Sounds Current

Immigration is a hot-button topic for many nations around the world, and especially in the United States. The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation is one organization that not only seeks to preserve the history of immigration through Angel Island, but also to steward a culture that recognizes the complexities of immigration and works to build a community of safety and belonging. Ed Tepporn is the Executive Director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, and in this conversation excerpt, he and Charlton discuss the legacy of Angel Island and the nuances of what immigration...

BONUS: Living and Working on Angel Island with Casey Dexter-Lee

Sounds Current

Casey Dexter-Lee is a state park interpreter who has dedicated 23+ years to Angel Island. Casey has been an invaluable resource for coordinating our world premiere on Angel Island and subsequent Angel Island Concert Series. In this bonus episode, Del Sol violinist Hyeyung Sol Yoon talks with Casey on location about what it's like to visit, live, and work on Angel Island. Casey shares why it's important to preserve the legacies of the island for future generations. Mentioned in the Episode Connect with Del Sol Quartet This episode is a bonus from the "Angel Island" season of...

BONUS: Transforming Place Through Performance with Susan Moffat

Sounds Current

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...

BONUS: Following Your Own Artistic Voice with Emiko Ono, Hewlett Foundation

Sounds Current

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 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 to learn more...

BONUS: Embracing the Unknown and Bringing People Together with Composer Huang Ruo

Sounds Current

“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 , 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...

BONUS: Join Del Sol on spring tour!

Sounds Current

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

BONUS: Staging Angel Island in NYC by Engaging With the Spirits with Matthew Ozawa

Sounds Current

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...

BONUS: Singing in Chinese with Sidney Chen

Sounds Current

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,...

BONUS: Making Magic with Del Sol Quartet from The Creative Impostor Podcast

Sounds Current

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...

More Episodes

Much like Angel Island, the project, Angel Island, the place, is a point of entry, connecting many visitors to a history they know nothing about––and reminding some of a traumatic past they'd rather forget.

Del Sol Quartet violist Charlton Lee and collaborators draw audiences into the world of Angel Island, a tranquil state park in San Francisco Bay dotted with winding trails and a campus of restored wooden buildings that once served as a processing station, interrogation hub, and detention center for mostly Asian immigrants between 1910 and 1940.

What is the island like today, and what may life have been like for the 500,000 newly arrived individuals and families who landed here a century ago in search of a better life? And what is the emotional legacy of the stories that may never have been told from one generation to the next?

This conversation contains brief, graphic mentions of suicide. Please take care when engaging with the episode.

Part 2 Features:

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

Hyeyung Sol Yoon, Del Sol Quartet violinist

Kathryn Bates, Del Sol Quartet cellist

Ed Tepporn, Executive Director, Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Emiko Ono, Director Of Performing Arts Program at The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

Andi Wong, educator and collaborator, Angel Island Project

Genny Lim, poet and collaborator, Angel Island Project

Music in this Episode Provided By:

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

RESOURCES & LINKS

Huang Ruo

Angel Island Immigration Station

Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Immigrant Voices Oral History Project

Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island

Genny Lim

The Last Hoisan Poets

William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

The National Archives at San Francisco (San Bruno)

LEARN MORE ABOUT DEL SOL

https://www.delsolquartet.com/podcast