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 diaspora composers in the United States Theresa Wong, Vivian Fung, and Meilina Tsui. Together we discuss the components of successful collaboration, the necessity of holding each other’s stories to discover truth, and the beauty of checking your ego at the door.

Songs of the Diaspora

Genny Lim

Theresa Wong

Vivian Fung

Meilina Tsui

Andi Wong

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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.

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 means to this country now and in the future.

Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940, Edited by Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim and Judy Yung

Voices of Angel Island by Charles Egan

Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

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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.

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.

Angel Island State Park

Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Immigrant Voices

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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.

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.

DelSolQuartet.com

Del Sol Quartet on Spotify

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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.

DelSolQuartet.com

Del Sol Quartet on Spotify

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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.