Napa, CA – Turtle Island Quartet received their second Grammy in just three years in the Best Classical Crossover Album category for their latest Telarc recording, A Love Supreme—The Legacy of John Coltrane. The Napa Valley Opera House presentation of this phenomenal program will take place on Saturday, February 29 at 8pm, with a pre-show talk by TIQ at 7pm. Tickets are $35.

In exploring John Coltrane’s musical legacy, Turtle Island Quartet continues its own tradition of employing the string quartet form to shed new light on the timeless joy and beauty contained in the greatest music of the American jazz masters. The concert program will present an in-depth look at this landmark recording in the greater context of the music that preceded and followed, a time many consider to be the last great evolutionary period of jazz.

Its name derived from creation mythology found in Native American Folklore, the Turtle Island Quartet, since its inception in 1985, has been a singular force in the creation of bold, new trends in chamber music for strings. With David Balakrishnan and Mads Tolling on violin, Jeremy Kittel on viola, and Mark Summer on cello, Turtle Island Quartet is the string quartet for the 21st century.

NAPA VALLEY OPERA HOUSE: The Napa Valley Opera House is a "Jewel of Napa Valley" located in the heart of downtown Napa and a national historic landmark originally constructed in 1879. NVOH restored their intimate second-floor, 500-seat Margrit Biever Mondavi Theatre five years ago after 30 years of planning. During the NVOH 2008 Winter Season, patrons experience an eclectic array of performing arts including theatre, dance, comedy, jazz, world music, and family programming in a world class setting.

ABOUT TURTLE ISLAND QUARTET: The Quartet’s birth was the result of violinist David Balakrishnan’s brainstorming and compositional vision while writing his master’s thesis at Antioch University West. The journey has taken Turtle Island through forays into folk, bluegrass, swing, funk, R&B, rock, hip-hop, as well as music of Latin America and India...a repertoire consisting of hundreds of ingenious arrangements and originals. It has included over a dozen recordings on labels such as Windham Hill, Chandos, and Telarc, soundtracks for major motion pictures, TV and radio credits such as the Today Show, All Things Considered, and Prairie Home Companion, feature articles in People and Newsweek magazines, and collaborations with famed artists such as clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera, The Manhattan Transfer, and Parsons Dance Co.

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