About RVSQ

(photo: Jessica Ivry and Irene Sazer with producer/engineer Bruce Kaphan)

Biography

RVSQ was formed in 2003 by premier San Francisco violinist/composer Irene Sazer. Since then, the quartet has performed to sold out audiences around the Bay Area. The group is thrilled to announce the release this February of their first studio album. RVSQ’s influences range from traditional American string band music to contemporary improvisation, from Brazilian folk rhythms to hypnotic meditations from West Africa.  Through it all, the threads of spine-tingling vocal and instrumental harmony and fearless, inspired improvisation weave a web of original acoustic music played with a deep groove.

Irene Sazer is a violinist, composer, arranger and singer. Irene has developed a unique style of putting world and roots music together with her classical, jazz, and pop sensibilities. It’s rare to find such a fine instrumentalist so diverse as a musician. Known best to international audiences as one of the founding members of The Turtle Island String Quartet, Sazer has also served as concertmaster with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra as well as the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic, and has performed with The Oakland Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She has performed as soloist with The Peninsula Orchestra, The Rohnert Park Chamber Orchestra, and at the Cabrillo Music Festival. Educated with a performance degree from the Peabody conservatory, she became fascinated with improvisation, and furthered her evolution at the Banff Centre of Fine Arts where she worked with Frank Foster, Slide Hampton, and the Vancouver Ensemble of Improvisation. Her violin expertise has made her an in demand genre-hopping player as well, recording and/or performing with, to name just a few, Jai Uttal, Ali Akbar Khan, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Frank Sinatra, Kitaro, Smoky Robinson, David Grisman, Linda Rondstadt, Bjork, Maria Marquez and Billy Joel. Irene’s CD of original songs is entitled “First Things First.”

Violinist Alisa Rose is a member of the Real Vocal String Quartet, Homespun Rowdy, Forty-Nine Special, Quartet San Francisco, and A.J. Roach and the Strange Pilgrims. Alisa performed recently at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Strawberry Music Festival, the Olympic Music Festival, Blue Highways Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands, Reinberger Chamber Hall, and in Carnegie Hall, and on PBS “Song of the Mountains.”  She has also recorded and/or performed with Mars Arizona, Matt Bauer, Rachel Ries, Nels Andrews, Anais Mitchell, ALO, Train, and Bauhaus. Alisa’s chamber music collaborators include Jean-Michel Fonteneau, Martha Katz, Jodi Levitz, Bettina Mussumeli and Ian Swensen and she has premiered works for the 5C Composers Collective, David Graves, and David Garner. Alisa received her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Chamber Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Camilla Wicks and Bettina Mussumeli. She currently teaches privately and at the SF Friends School.

Bay Area native Dina Maccabee performs with many Bay Area ensembles on violin and viola. In 2007, she toured in Russia and Europe with Beth Custer’s live film score project, “My Grandmother,” and songwriter Vienna Teng. In addition to her own songwriting group Ramon and Jessica, she performs with The German Projekt (songs of Kurt Weill), Howard Wiley’s Angola Project (contemporary spiritual-inspired jazz), the Japonize Elephants (circus-klezmer-bluegrass), Evie Ladin’s Evil Diane (original old-timey folk), and the Middle-Eastern psychedelic ensemble Khi Darag. Her interest in traditional fiddle styles has led her to study with Bay Area fiddle hero Chad Manning, fiddle lessons in Ireland, as well as forays into Cajun and French Canadian styles. Performance highlights include appearances with Donovan, Sufjan Stevens, and Tin Hat Trio, and her playing is featured on numerous successful records with artists such as Vetiver, The Cuts, Vienna Teng, Spencer Day, the Shotgun Wedding Hip Hop Symphony, and Carla Bozulich. She has also composed and recorded scores for Shotgun Players, Just Theater, and several San Francisco filmmakers.

Jessica Ivry (cello) is a freelance musician who plays and composes a myriad of styles including Classical, Balkan, East European and improvisation. She is also an instructor of music at the College of Marin. Jessica plays with the Real Vocal String Quartet, an original music string and vocal ensemble and with avant-cabaret composer and singer Amy X Neuburg and the Cello ChiXtet. Jessica has also performed and toured with the Beth Custer Ensemble (music for silent film), with singer/songwriter Vienna Teng and with Balkan women’s choir, Kitka. For San Francisco’s A Traveling Jewish Theatre’s 2005 and 2007 seasons, Jessica scored and performed original music for The Bright River, a hip-hop retelling of Dante’s Inferno, and for Arthur Miller’s classic drama, Death of a Salesman. Jessica recorded on Grammy nominated album, “Blueprint of a Lady” for jazz vocalist, Nneena Freelon. Recently Jessica performed with ARK, a conglomerate of Bay Area and New York Klezmer musicians at the 18th Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow, Poland and for the final concert of the 23rd Annual Jewish Music Festival in San Francisco. This project was a feature on “Spark”, KQED public television series about Bay Area artists. Jessica holds degrees from Skidmore College and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Instrumentation

Irene Sazer, violin and voice
Alisa Rose, violin and voice
Dina Maccabee, viola and voice
Jessica Ivry, cello and voice

Discography

Real Vocal String Quartet (2010)

Debut Album

Available now from CDBaby, iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, and other online outlets.

Photos

Video

Reviews

Strad Magazine Review

By Rik Malone | Mar 14, 2010
KQED Arts, Feature/Concert Preview  03/14/10

If you’re a musician in the Bay Area (and you’re not a member of the San Francisco Symphony), the secret to success is to diversify. Whether it’s new music, jazz, ethnic styles from around the world or around the block, if you can do it well, and authentically, you can not only have a career, you just might blaze a trail. Kronos, the Turtle Island String Quartet, and the Quartet San Francisco have all found ways to stretch the boundaries of what it means to be a classical string quartet; with The Real Vocal String Quartet, we may have finally burst those boundaries. San Francisco Performances is giving the Real Vocal String Quartet a chance to expand your idea of what a quartet can do on Wednesday, March 17 at 6:30pm at San Francisco’s Hotel Rex.
The Real Vocal String Quartet was formed in 2003 by Irene Sazer, who had already diversified her career by playing with the likes of Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Linda Ronstadt, as well as with the San Francisco Symphony, the Oakland Symphony, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and the Women’s Philharmonic. She was also a founding member of the Turtle Island String Quartet, which gave her a head start on building musical bridges. The other members of the Quartet, Alisa Rose, Dina Maccabee and Jessica Ivry are versatile veteran players with their own impressive and wide-ranging resumes. They’ve all got the classical bona fides, but they’re also astoundingly fluent in jazz, klezmer, bluegrass, hip-hop, Brazilian, Balkan, Cajun, Middle Eastern, West African, and probably a dozen more musical languages.

Two things really set this quartet apart. First is their ability to improvise in any of those languages. Most classically-trained musicians are not taught to improvise — they’re taught to play what’s written on the page as musically as possible. Improvisation is at the heart of almost every other musical tradition, though, and it takes a rare classical player to be able to break down those years of being true to the notes to let your fingers fly on their own.
The second difference is right there in the name. They sing — while they’re playing. As someone who has tried to sing with a viola stuck under my chin, I can tell you that it is not easy. Their voices fit together as well as their instruments do. Listen to their new CD and be very impressed. I certainly was.

RVSQ’s music is by turns beautiful, haunting, mesmerizing and foot-stomping fun. There’s a lot here that sounds vaguely familiar — though I couldn’t quite put my finger on the direct influences — but for me the familiarity merely heightens the enjoyment of these mostly original tunes. There’s even a cover of Paul Simon’s “Night Game” (speaking of building musical bridges).
It’s a show that will upend your notions of what a string quartet should sound like, in a setting that does the same for the notion of “classical concert.” And it’s St. Patrick’s Day so you can count on a reel or two with some fancy fiddling.
The Real Vocal String Quartet plays the Hotel Rex on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at 6:30pm.

Shannon Logan 03/18/10
Real Vocal String Quartet

I had a musical craving the other night, for what I didn’t exactly know. I’ll try and define it for you. I wanted something…not as serious as chamber music, but not as irreverent as rock n roll. Wider than pop, but not as broad as ‘world.’ I didn’t want to hear it on the radio, but I also didn’t think I’d find it at a local vintage store, or in a darkened opera house. I know I wanted it to swing, and clap, and sway in a rowdy kind of way, but with a polished finish. And it had to come from the heart.
It turns out they have a word for it, of course. I guess what I was really looking for was classical crossover. And more specifically,  a bay area foursome by the name of the Real Vocal String Quartet.

When I looked up the term ‘classical crossover’ I found two definitions. What seems to fall into this category are classical artists that have made the jump, as it were, to becoming popularized for mass appeal. “Popera,” for example. Under the same definition are traditional classical musicians that produce music with a mix of genres, some of which may be more popular, mainstream influences, though they have a defined and more classically inclined audience.

Irene Sazer, the founder of the all female quartet, said her group definitely falls into the second category. It took her more than a few years to assemble the right players with the unique skill sets necessary, and what defines them the most is their love of constant exploration. Any musical influence the performers are obsessed with gets thrown into the pot. “Dina is into Cajun right now, and I love jazz,” Irene said.”We have classical chops–we have the technical training–but we’re thrilled to fly off in different directions.”
I sat front row at the Bootleg Theatre on Sunday night to watch RVSQ for the first time, in the speakeasy style venue with bare rafters and exposed plywood, that lent an odd, yet not unpleasant, ambiance to the performance. Sort of a city-side version of a barn. When their bows hit the strings, the crowd grew silent, as the music took us many places. Swedish folk songs, West African rhythms, famous jazz numbers, bits and pieces of a waltzes, Brazilian samba. The instruments sometimes mimicked the sounds of sitars, bagpipes, flutes, human voices. And sometimes they just sounded like…a viola, a cello, a violin.

And the ladies sang. Always a plus.

In a word, the show was delightful. No better way to get acquainted with both a new genre of music, and new artists. So if you ever get a craving for something interesting, that you can’t quite define, check out Real Vocal String Quartet. More info on the ladies can be found here, and if you happen to be at SXSW this weekend, go see them–they will be performing Saturday night (3-20-10) at midnight in the Classical Crossover showcase, and they are best enjoyed LIVE.

March 13, 5:59 PMLA Performing Arts Examiner

Melissa Berry

From Sahara Trance Bluegrass to Re-Imagined Brazilian Choros: The Un-Chamber Music of Real Vocal String Quartet
What do you get when you cross a couple of violins, with a viola, with a cello and voices. Yes, you string quartet but not just any string quartet a string quartet with unbelievable accompanying vocals. The classically-trained players of the Real Vocal String Quartet have it all as can be witnessed on their debut eponymous recording (February 9, 2010 , independent release) which I recently listened to in musical stupification. I’m looking forward to being equally stupefied in person this coming Sunday, March 14th at Bootleg, 2220 Beverly Blvd.at 7:30 where they’ll be performing.  I know it won’t just be the traditional string quartet presenting the traditional string quartet music. These women intimately bang on their violins, stomp their feet, and allow African trance music to influence their take on old timey standards. It’s not their sanity that’s missing; what RVSQ has lost is the ability to abide the constraints of either the old school classical world, where musicians must frequently forsake their creativity for the overall sound of the orchestra, or the often unapproachable reaches of the contemporary classical world. Their simultaneous singing and stringing-a barrier buster in itself-may just be the perfect combination for straddling these musical worlds.

Inside that space the all-female Quartet embraces the influences of four radically diverse musicians, who’ve cut their teeth individually on every kind of string playing from Balkan and circus-klezmer to West African and bluegrass.  The Quartet is rounded out by Alisa Rose, violinist and fiddler extraordinaire, from 49 Special and Picasso Quartet, and cellist Jessica Ivry who has been heard on a hip-hop retelling of Dante’s Inferno and playing with jazz vocalist Nneena Freelon among other things. Sounds and songs inspire the Quartet from every which way. All four players add their mad improvisation skills and vocals to the mix.

Though they are not hesitant to draw on their technical skill of transcription and arrangement, Real Vocal String Quartet is not locked into their conservatory-trained method. At every performance, including their studio recording for the album, they dive into the unpredictable when they play “Now,” a group improvisation that changes every time. No one, not even the person who initiates the piece knows what she is going to play, but that all changes once they get going
Wherever they began individually, together, the players in Real Vocal String Quartet have gone somewhere entirely new. Their chemistry as a musical group has become a catalyst for a creative explosion. They’ve taken their classical and jazz training, and combined it with their talent and other forays for their debut album. African, Brazilian, Balkan, Bluegrass: they’ve stretched beyond the conceived limits of string music. It may seem like they’ve absolutely lost it, but it doesn’t take an expert to see that they’ve known where it was the entire time.

Feb 26 2010

Violinist Irene Sazer is best known as a founder of the innovative
chamber group Turtle Island String Quartet. Sazer has always had a
wide range of musical interests, lending her talents to everything
from orchestras to jazz singers. On the new CD by her group, the Real
Vocal String Quartet, Sazer’s diverse musical vision comes into sharp
focus. Jazz critic Andrew Gilbert has a review.
http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201002261630/d

Six Picks: Recommendations from the Monitor staff

February 16, 2010

On their eponymous debut CD, the Real Vocal String Quartet (Flower Note Records) winningly redefines string quartet repertoire with an authority that puts them in the same league as the venerable Kronos Quartet. These four Berkeley women perform largely original music – flavored with Appalachian fiddle tunes, African songs, and Brazilian dances. As their name suggests, their dulcet voices harmonize in lush synchronization with their violins, viola, and cello. This spritely marriage of string quartet precision and elegance with lyrically sophisticated pop vocals makes their bridging of the chasm between pop and classical music freshly enchanting.

96 Hours, February 11 2010

Tonight @ Freight & Salvage: The brainchild of violinist Irene Sazer (Turtle Island String Quartet), RVSQ brings together some of the Bay Area’s most versatile musicians, including violinist Alisa Rose, violinist/violist Dina Maccabee and cellist Jessica Ivry. Celebrating the release of its eponymous album, the band combines four-part vocal harmonies, foot stomps and percussive bow techniques with melodies and rhythms from Brazil, West Africa, Appalachia and the Balkans. Erasing distinctions between old-time and new music, the gals are simply keeping it real. 8 p.m., $18.50-$19.50, all ages. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 644-2020, www.thefreight.org. (A.G.)
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/11/NSMT1BSME2.DTL#ixzz0fFx81tFY

Classical music played differently from the norm, but with the passion and joie de vivre worthy of the great masters
February 11, 2010
5.0 out of 5 stars
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) – See all my reviews

Real Vocal String Quartet is the exciting album of four classically-trained female players who have forsaken the artificial constraints of both the old classical realm, where musicians are expected to sacrifice their creativity to better contribute to the overall orchestra sound, and the contemporary classical world, the “new music” of which can take difficulty to absurd lengths. Real Vocal String Quartet features simultaneous singing and string playing that defies the boundaries of the soloist-centered and conductor-centered classical music scenes. An extraordinary acoustic experience, Real Vocal String Quartet is a gem for public library collections and anyone interested in hearing classical music played differently from the norm, but with the passion and joie de vivre worthy of the great masters. Highly recommended. http://www.midwestbookreview.com/

February 10, 2010
http://lucidculture.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/cd-review-the-real-vocal-string-quartet/

A cynic might call the Real Vocal String Quartet the happy Rasputina. But that doesn’t give the all-female new music ensemble enough credit – considering the global diversity of styles they play here, a better comparison would be genre-smashing jazz/Americana violinist/composer Jenny Scheinman. Founded by former Turtle Island String Quartet violinist Irene Sazer, the Real Vocal String Quartet blend classical, avant garde, bluegrass, Balkan and African influences; the ultimate result is completely unique. While Sazer writes most of the material, violinist Alisa Rose, violist Dina Maccabee and cellist Jessica Ivry also contribute. Everybody sings.

The album opens with a circular arrangement of Kenyan composer and nyatiti lute player Ayub Ogada’s Kothbiro, alternating rhythmic pizzicato with lush washes of ambience in a striking call-and-response. They follow that with a traditional Appalachian dance done as hypnotic Tinariwen-style desert blues, string quartet style. The single best number on the album is the darkly crescendoing, cinematic instrumental Night Game, which nonetheless finds a way to end on a cleverly playful, upbeat note. A diptych here sounds like traditional Italian folk music, but it’s actually a couple of covers from the catalog of early Brazilian jazz pioneer Pixinguinha. Green Bean Stand harmonizes high vocalese with the strings, morphing into a hypnotically swaying one-chord dance vamp evocative of the ensemble’s Turtle Island cousins. There’s also a hauntingly rustic country song, the violins playing a guitar chart; a hypnotic, ambient tone poem with strings and vocalese; a tricky art-rock song with rousing harmonies, and a wistful vocal tune that gives way to a stately baroque theme. There’s so much here that it ought to appeal to a lot of fanbases: neoclassical types, world music and chamber music fans, and just your average pop/rock person looking for something good for the ipod.

February 10, 2010 Music » CD Reviews
East Bay Express
By j. poet

The Real Vocal String Quartet is set on expanding the parameters of classical string music. Group founder violinist and vocalist Irene Sazer was an original member of the Turtle Island String Quartet, the jazzy pioneering newgrass and world fusion band. Sazer and the other members of Real Vocal String Quartet — Alisa Rose, violin; Dina Maccabee, viola; and Jessica Ivry, cello — were all classically trained, but they’re intent on playing music that breaks down the parameters of the string quartet.
On Ayub Ogada’s “Kothbiro,” a song about herding cattle in the rain, the plucked strings of the violins mimic the sound of the nyatiti, a Kenyan harp. The dark textures of the viola, the group’s four-part harmonies, and Tobias Robertson’s percussion add to the mood. “Talking Drum Talking String” does exactly what you’d expect; the women pound the bodies of the violins and pluck the strings to produce a talking drum-like sound, complementing a bluegrassy, Appalachian-influenced melody. “Kitchen Girls” is a folk song played in a manner that suggests heavy rock riffing and mountain fiddling with Ivry’s thumping cello holding down the bass line. Sazar’s “Darling” is a beautiful love song with a simple folklike lyric that’s balanced by the group’s lush harmonies and emotive string work.

The quartet shows off its vocal work on the aptly named “Chorale,” a baroque melody by Sazer that moves from a beautiful string arrangement to a sumptuous interlude of intertwined vocal harmonies. (Flower Note)

By Caitlin Donohue  sfbg music blog   2/8/10
www.sfbg.com

Real Vocal String Quartet raises the bar(n) on funkdafied classical jams“The classical composers we know so well, Beethoven and Bach and Vivaldi, they were improvisers. So really, we’re carrying on that legacy,” says Real Vocal String Quartet founder Irene Sazer. I’d love to know what the old masters would think of a RVSQ gig- would they throw down their powdered wig and get down when the women launch their cellos into “Fontana Abandonada-Passatempo,” their Afro-Brazilian jam? Get their britches in a twist over “Kothbiro,” a nyatiti song by Kenyan artist Ayub Ogada?

I reckon they’d have dug the tunes. After all, RVSQ attributes their freedom to perform such divergent genres to their traditional classical training. The band members- Sazer and Alisa Rose on the violin, Dina Maccabee on viola and cellist Jessica Ivry- were all band kids, many raised in families of classical musicians and most recipients of college degrees in their respective axes. Some started careers in orchestras and the like. But there was always something beyond the Bach that beckoned.

“For me growing up, I had two musical lives,” says the enthusiastic Sazer, who is given to excited exclamations and breathless descriptions of the energy she gleans from her RVSQ bandmembers. “One as a ‘serious’ violin player… but on the other side, my mom was into folk music from all over the world- she sang in Yiddish. I heard world music from an early age and always loved it. I heard the Beatles, Carol King, Joni Mitchell- the really great pop music informed my life as well.”
“Because of the pedagogy of being a classical musician,” she continues “it seemed so separate- but I never liked that. What I hoped for when I became a young adult was to explore lots of different styles of music- I hoped for my own individual musical language. I’m even luckier than that because I’ve found a group of people on similar musical paths.”

After the jump, RSVQ takes the path that’s not taken as much. Their alternate path has led to a loosening for RVSQ. The group’s repertoire includes “Now,” an improvisational song they play at every show. It’s a chance to create a different sound for each new audience, a little klezmer here, maybe a smattering of bluegrass or trance rock of northern Mali origin, there. Gotta love a classical quartet that chills barefoot in the dirt.

Though Sazer says she was “really afraid” of improvisation in the early days of her classical training, “it’s such a pleasure when you have people who are accomplished on their instruments and love to jump in and take the risk. It’s a thrill that we have such a vehicle for exploration. And if you’re skilled you can do it mo’ better.”

Mo’ better indeed- the women are seeing their vision resonate with a growing audience, the demographic of whom Sazer confesses is a bit of a enigma. “We have to take polls! The finding of our people is kind of a mystery.” Difficult to pigeonhole themselves, RVSQ is now working on making their name in the world music arena, even landing a gig at 2010’s South by Southwest. Locally, you can catch them at their album release party at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage next week- but try to maintain your composure at the show. “People are going to want to come and be somewhat quiet and listen,” says Sazer, laughing somewhat at her exhortation. “There’s a lot of intimacy in our ensemble and musical product.” So keep a lid on it, Handel.

Thursday, February 04 2010 @ 02:18 AM EST
World Music Central
Contributed by: ARomero
http://worldmusiccentral.org/article.php/Real_Vocal_String_Quartet_cd

Although there are a lot of string quartets out there, the all-female Real Vocal String Quartet stands out because of its beautiful combination of violins, cello and viola with polyphonic vocals performed by the instrumentalists. Irene Sazer (violin and vocals), Dina Maccabee (viola and vocals), Alisa Rose (violin and vocals), and Jessiva Ivry  (cello and vocals) take string ensemble chamber music and blend it with American bluegrass, Brazilian melodies written by the legendary Pixinguinha, Balkan influences, African rhythms inspired by Mali’s Tinariwen and jazz improvisation.

“There is a perception that ‘new music’ for classically trained musicians needs to be difficult or inaccessible,” says Dina Maccabee, a violist in the group. “We are all totally into challenging ideas but we also like pop music. And we feel like just because you have a highly trained skill set doesn’t mean you need to play obscure music.”

“There are many neuroses that come with being a classical violinist; perfectionism among them,” explains Irene Sazer, an original member of the Turtle Island String Quartet and founder of Real Vocal String Quartet. “Often in the pedagogy, there’s a real meanness. There’s a good and a bad, a right and a wrong. You succeeded, you failed. It’s a very restrictive box that I’ve been working on breaking out of my whole life. One of my goals and needs in life is to create an ensemble where there is room for everybody both personally and creatively. Key to that is ample room for exploration.”

“I find myself most fascinated and soothed by rhythmic texture these days,” said Sazer. “I was listening to these intricate rhythmic sections and the scintillating vocals of African music.”
“We’re playing all these Western classical instruments and we are all like Jewish girls,” Maccabee laughs. “But there is something about that combination… It’s a little bit trance and really rich in rhythm; if maybe more simple in terms of harmony. Things don’t move around a lot. The richness is in the timbres and the rhythmic element and we all want to explore that. Rather than a jazz tune with one hundred million chords which is a different kind of complexity. Strings and voice and hands and feet. It’s all about layers of sounds and the color of sound.”

Heroes of Indie Music
http://castleqwayr.wordpress.com/

The past two weeks have been a time of review and reflection on this soon to be released (February 9th) offering from ”Real Vocal String Quartet.” Normally, I can get a sense of the style and artistic prowess of a release after a mere handful of auditions. Not this time. This album strikes all the good chords in my appreciation of classical music. But that is just a bare start. This is professionally done with an international infusion of styles/genres. I am especially enjoying the vocal tracks from Irene Sazer and comrades. What beautiful voices that blend so playfully. Their warmth of personality that flows from these lyrics and often plucked arrangements will keep you coming back for more.
Not what I expected and not lacking for anything.
~ by castleqwayr on January 18, 2010.

http://midwestrecord.com/MWRBlog.html
January 15, 2010

REAL VOCAL STRING QUARTET: So what do classically trained Windham Hill refugees do when the system turns their back on them and sets them adrift in the Bay area? Pretty much what ever they damned well please. Classical with a punk/lounge core sensibility, these ladies will not be playing any tea parties anytime soon, unless it’s a guest shot on “Weeds”. Kinda world, kinda classical, kinda folk, kinda a bit of everything, this is way out adult listening that never gets cute for the sake of being cute, it’s solidly played above everything else. A wondrous left field outing that won’t disappoint

February 2010 / Strings
AllThingsStrings.com

During the past few decades, ensembles as diverse as the Turtle Island String Quartet, Black Swan Quartet,
Uptown String Quartet, and Quartet San Francisco have greatly modified our notions of the string quartet,
bending and mixing genres, reinvigorating improvisation, undertaking unconventional collaborations, and
re-imagining traditional and vernacular tunes in purely instrumental concert settings.
Now comes the Real Vocal String Quartet (violinists and vocalists Irene Sazer and
Alisa Rose, violist and vocalist Dina Maccabee, and cellist and vocalist Jessica Ivry),
whose eponymous debut recording on Flower Note Records (rvsq.com) demonstrates
the ultimate circling back to musical roots by fusing uncommonly polished string-quartet
playing with haunting, expressive singing by the quartet members.

The range of material is wide, from original compositions and improvisations by the
quartet members to settings of New York pop, Brazilian choro, Kenyan traditional lyre,
and Appalachian fiddling. But this is neither post-modern gumbo nor high-art rework-
ing—the spirit animating this CD, to my mind, is that of folk legend Pete Seeger.
These musicians sound as if they have openly and conscientiously explored musi-
cal cultures outside their own, enthusiastically embraced these influences, and are
expressing their pleasure without overthinking such matters as authenticity and social
context.

The playing and singing is gorgeous, the flow of the recording is like a river, and
even when the mood is dark, they’re absorbed and having fun. And they want you to
have fun, too.
—David A. Lusterman

Strings Magazine
David A. Lusterman, Publisher
January 12, 2009

Graham Pellettieri, music editor of Strings, and I recently had the pleasure of organizing a reading and recording session with the Real Vocal String Quartet (Irene Sazer and Alisa Rose, violins; Dina Maccabee, viola; and Jessica Ivry, cello), who apply their prodigious classical chops to a variety of original and arranged music, occasionally enriching their performances by singing and playing at the same time, a practice I find much easier with a guitar in hand than a cello. Not so these four, who break no sweat and sing remarkably well.

The members of RVSQ are helping us to launch a new sheet-music series called Strings Charts (learn more at www.allthingsstrings.com/books). At our January 7 session, we focused on proofreading three editions that were about to go off to the printing plant. My colleague Graham is an uncommonly thoughtful and disciplined music engraver (if I may use that archaic term in this digital era), and he and the quartet members spent considerable time discussing the nuances of printed part-marking. When and whether to include bowings and fingerings? (Sometimes, especially in editions for younger players.) Should the terms “melody” and “harmony” be used to alert ensemble members as to the relative importance of phrases? (Often a good idea, but the phrase “melody octave” is overkill and perhaps misleading.) Will musicians understand the expressive marking “disaffectedly” (Probably, especially in the string arrangement of a somewhat disaffected rock ballad.) And then there’s the killer query of the day: How do players interpret notes over which both a dash and a dot appear? (Very differently, depending on the player.)

So if you’ve ever stared at the music on your stand and wondered what the editor could possibly have been thinking when he/she topped that series of E-flat quarter notes with the mysterious dash-dot articulation, or asked you to play a passage “disaffectedly,” rest assured that the editor was indeed thinking . . . and that, in fact, every piece of well-notated music you ever encounter (or write yourself) involves a seemingly endless series of considerations, hesitations, and decisions. A “bad edition” is merely one that has been prepared either thoughtlessly or in needless haste.
And you thought performing was a complicated business!

Pacifica Tribune
By Jean Bartlett
Arts Correspondent, Pacifica Tribune
November 2, 2005

The Italian 19th century virtuoso violinist Niccolo Paganini expressed such near supernatural prowess on the violin that he was the passion of audiences throughout Europe. And he deserved the praise. He was the guy that innovated the left-hand pizzicato. He was the guy who used new and exciting tunings enabling the violin to shout forth animal
cries and the sounds of the human voice. He was also the guy who, late in his show, would cut various strings of his instrument and then boldly play the most difficult passage on the remaining strings, brilliantly. He was so incredibly popular in his time, that even now his name is deservedly a big deal.

Well today we’re living in the time of our own big deal virtuoso violinist, and her name is Irene Sazer. Now Ms. Sazer has gone on to add a little spice to heralready gripping performance by seating herself within a circle of three other virtuosos; and the sound they shake out is 21st century kick-butt legend.
Irene Sazer & The Real Vocal String Quartet (RVSQ) played Saturday night at Pacifica’s Sanchez Concert Hall. Here’s the list of the players: Irene Sazer on violin, vocals and guitar; Kate Stenberg on violin and vocals; Dina Maccabee on viola, violin and vocals; and Jessica Ivry on cello and vocals. What I like about RVSQ’s sound is they are all about today’s music; world music. One of their compositions might take you from a patchwork quilt of Appalachia to under a river current of Congo to over the Hill of Tara and out beyond a choro lit Brazil. Their sound skirts classical, gypsy, folk, Bartok, jazz, light rock and diversity. Some compositions are serene, others are foot stomping but all are intelligent with an undercurrent of thrill.
They opened their show with a string tune-up that brought the house down. Then with vocal strong woman cries they hit the scales running with “Talking String, Talking Drum” (Sazer). In this piece Sazer proves there is a real sibling relationship between violin and drum.

If green beans could sing out in jazz cool while violin/viola strings stirred summertime over mellow pump cello you would have “Green Bean Stand” (Sazer). Bela Fleck and Gerry Douglass wrote The Lochs of Dread and Sazer arranged it for quartet, her quartet. This was shadow cat on a high wire. Viola string strut smoked with cello bass and sashay violin to make a tune happening snap. “Falling To My Feet” (Sazer) is simple talk sweetness. “Kitchen
Girls” (Maccabee) threw a little Kentucky Blue Grass, African tribal rock, parlor classical and farmhouse hoedown into the stewpot and rocked. Cellist Ivry wrote “Break Up Song #1″ and sang it in a kind of mesmerizing Celtic, ethereal Dylan rock chant. You could almost hear Tibetan bells and a quiet wind rustle between great mountain
peaks, making a sound of mist and magic.

Next up, a song Sazer likes to call “Now.” Why? Because they write it on the spot. Each musician takes a turn with a tune that comes to be as they create from mind to instrument and the others chime in to make it a Quartet original. Sazer’s piece rocked of Romany and Mars. Stenberg’s piece climbed through classical and the colors of the Civil War. Cellist Ivry strolled an Appalachian waltz. Violist Maccabee gave a nod to Halloween with casket opening strings, bat flying plucks and a Transylvania melter. My seat neighbor wanted to know how in tarnation was she going to be able to buy this made up song on CD? They ended the first set with a Sazer arranged version of two combined tunes of a Kenya artist. Joy walking, leaves rustling, water falling like gold through cupped hands; this is just a brief description of this string song of serenity, and their harmony chant was a vocal walk through the clouds.

The second set was as good as the first, which hardly seems possible. Dina Maccabee’s “Farewell to Spring” must have been whispered to her by the flowers for it was all curtsy and bow to fields of bright colors. “Darling” (Sazer) was sage brush and Joni Mitchell and just a nice place to be. Every song in the set (and in their evening) worth hearing, breathing in and being a part of.
RVSQ defines brilliant musicians with fun personalities playing beautiful, inventive music; that’s as good as it gets. Dang it, when is their CD coming out? I’ll be checking out their website at http://rvsq.com and so should you.

San Francisco Chronicle

NIGHTLIFE
Andrew Gilbert

Irene Sazer was ready for a musical party, but tonight’s event at Freight & Salvage wasn’t what she had in mind. A force on the Bay Area music scene for two decades, the violinist corrals her far-flung musical passions in the Real Vocal String Quartet, a band that weaves together the textures of a vocal ensemble and a string band with a mix of original songs and Sazer’s arrangements of tunes from Ireland, Kenya and Brazil.
Featuring violinist-violist Dina Maccabee, cellist Jessica Ivry and violinist Alisa Rose, the band showcases some of the region’s most creative young string players and vocalists. But in the midst of working on the quartet’s first album, Sazer was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and although her prognosis is good, she’s been forced to put the project on hold. “This band started out with my vision, but has taken on a truly collaborative vision,” Sazer says from her home in West Berkeley. “Everybody is an improviser and composer, and they’re all so talented and creative. I’m damn sad I have to take a break. This was going to be our yearly concert at the Freight. Hopefully, I’ll get better and back in the saddle soon.”

Instead of canceling the gig, Maccabee and fiddler Kaila Flexer put out the word to Sazer’s musical colleagues, turning tonight’s show into a benefit for Sazer, who will take the stage if she’s feeling up to it. Among the musicians scheduled to perform are singer-songwriter Vienna Teng, Aux Cajunals multi-instrumentalist Suzy Thompson, fiddler Amy Hofer, the Crooked Jades’ Erik Pearson on banjo, reed master Sheldon Brown, klezmer mandolinist Gerry Tenney, jazz and blues guitarist John Schott, and avant-garde cabaret vocalist Amy X Neuburg, a cast that reflects the many stylistic circles through which Sazer moves.
Raised in a musical family from Los Angeles — her father, Victor Sazer, a longtime fixture on the L.A. studio scene, is author of the instructional book “New Directions in Cello Playing” — Sazer graduated from the Peabody Conservatory and settled in the Bay Area in 1985.

Within weeks, she helped launch the pioneering, jazz-steeped Turtle Island String Quartet. She’s served as concertmaster of the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic and performed with the Oakland and San Francisco symphonies, while playing or recording with everyone from Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles to Ali Akbar Khan, David Grisman and Bjork.
“The thing I’ve always appreciated about Irene is that she’s mischievous and playful, like a sprite, and at the same time she can tear into that violin and play like crazy,” says Flexer, who started collaborating with Sazer 20 years ago in the quirky Composers’ Cafeteria band. “I run into a lot of kids who have studied with her. She’ll teach a heavy-metal tune on violin or whatever they want to do.”
Andrew Gilbert, 96hours@sfchronicle.com

East Bay Express
September 8, 2004

When Irene Sazer helped start the Turtle Island String Quartet in Oakland a decade ago, its classical-ification of Cole Porter and Miles Davis dissolved borders in a frenzy of joyful pioneering, adding a laid-back component to the deconstruction of chamber music that the Kronos Quartet has begun some years before. These days, violinist and violist Sazer still gets her yo-yos out, playing with artists such as Holly Near and Will Bernard and Motherbug, and on soundtracks to such films as Hellboy and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. This week, you can see what’s she’s been up to with Irene Sazer’s Vocal String Quartet, a foursome of ladies who aren’t afraid to raise voices and bang on fiddles and such while playing original compositions, Kenyan and Brazilian songs, and a Paul Simon cover.
– Stefanie Kalem

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Contact

P.O. Box 2753
Berkeley, CA 94702
(510) 548-3738
info@rvsq.com

Friends

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