Chinese American composer Huang Ruo debuts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) with Angel Island, co-presented by BAM and the PROTOTYPE Festival, from January 11-13, 2024. This immersive multimedia performance, which melds opera, theater, dance, and music, revisits the significant yet harrowing history of the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay. Operational from 1910 until its closure in 1940, this detention center processed over half a million immigrants, predominantly Chinese migrants who were largely impacted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The experiences of these immigrants, marked by prolonged and brutal detentions, are poignantly expressed through the poetry they left engraved on the facility’s walls.

In collaboration with the Del Sol Quartet, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, archival filmmaker Bill Morrison, and under the direction of Matthew Ozawa, and produced by Beth Morrison Projects, Huang Ruo creates a powerful requiem. This performance interweaves the heart-wrenching narratives of resilience and rebellion of the detainees, resonating deeply in today’s context of heightened violence and discrimination against immigrants, asylum seekers, and Asian communities. We strongly encourage our audience to witness this immersive production at BAM. This is a unique opportunity to experience the full depth and breadth of this emotive production.

Reserve Angel Island at BAM

Following the BAM performances, join us at MOCA on January 14 for a special event. This program is not a full performance of the opera but an insightful discussion featuring select musical excerpts. Engage with Huang Ruo and the Del Sol Quartet in a conversation that explores the creation of Angel Island, offering an opportunity for deeper engagement with the themes behind the production. Andi Wong, a historian and descendant of Angel Island immigrants, will also share her insights into the history of Angel Island.

Angel Island is more than a performance; it’s a reminder of past struggles and an artistic call for understanding and solidarity amidst the ongoing challenges faced by immigrants and minority communities globally.

About Huang Ruo

Composer Huang Ruo has been lauded by the New York Times for having “a distinctive style.” His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, Western avant-garde, experimental, noise, natural and processed sound, rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls “Dimensionalism.” Huang Ruo’s diverse compositional works span from orchestra, chamber music, opera, theater, and dance, to cross-genre, sound installation, architectural installation, multi-media, experimental improvisation, folk rock, and film. His music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Asko/Schoenberg, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta.

He has written 8 operas including M. BUTTERFLY, PARADISE INTERRUPTED, and AN AMERICAN SOLDIER, which was named one of the best classical music events in 2018 by The New York Times. He served as the first composer-in-residence for Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam.

Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China in 1976 – the year the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s when China was opening its gate to the Western world, his education expanded from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, and Lutoslawski, to include the Beatles, rock and roll, heavy metal, and jazz. He earned a BM degree from Oberlin College, and MM and DMA degrees from the Juilliard School. Huang Ruo is a composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music. Huang Ruo’s music is published by Ricordi.

Photo by AFW Productions & Chris Yeh

About Del Sol Quartet

San Francisco’s Del Sol Quartet believes that music can, and should, happen anywhere – screaming out Aeryn Santillan’s Makeshift Memorials from a Mission District sidewalk or a rural high school, bouncing Ben Johnston’s microtonal Americana off the canyon walls of the Yampa River or the hallowed walls of Library of Congress, bringing Huang Ruo’s Angel Island Oratorio home to the island detention barracks or across the Pacific to the Singapore International Arts Festival. Del Sol’s performances provide the possibility for unexpected discovery, sparking dialogue and bringing people together.

Since 1992, Del Sol has commissioned or premiered thousands of works by composers including Terry Riley, Tania León, Frederic Rzewski, Vijay Iyer, Mason Bates, Pamela Z, Chinary Ung, Chen Yi, Andy Akiho, Erberk Eryilmaz, Theresa Wong, and Reza Vali. They especially value their ongoing relationship with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music in Boonville, California.

Huang Ruo – A Dust in Time, Del Sol’s eleventh album, was described in the New York Times as “excavations of beauty from the elemental.” New Del Sol recordings in 2023 include The Resonance Between, a collaboration with North Indian musicians Alam Khan & Arjun Verma, and SPELLLING and The Mystery School with Oakland magical-futurist pop phenomenon SPELLLING.

Benjamin Kreith & Hyeyung Sol Yoon, violins
Charlton Lee, viola
Kathryn Bates, cello

About Andi Wong

Andi Wong is a descendant of Angel Island immigrants and fifth generation Chinese American. As project coordinator for ArtsEd4All, an informal creative collective based in San Francisco, she designs and hosts arts experiences rooted in place. Her creative partners include composer/musician Marcus Shelby, First Voice (Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu), Del Sol String Quartet and The Last Hoisan Poets (Genny Lim, Flo Oy Wong and Nellie Wong).