Lou Fancher of the San Francisco Classical Voice profiles Doug Machiz (MM ’11) and his San Francisco-based Friction Quartet. He writes:

Friction Quartet represents one of the glimmers of hope for the future of classical music. They are among the organizations with a willingness to take risks — often, they view the only true failure as a refusal to evolve. These groups shake up long-held assumptions and practices while committing to excellence, not just in performance, but in purpose.

They’ve earned praise and attention for commissioning 43 new works among 80 world premieres, nuanced performances of masterworks from the classical repertory, award-winning appearances at competitions and festivals, and interactive music programs that have the quartet involved in San Francisco Symphony’s Adventures in Music program, Young Composers and Improvisors Workshop, and presentations at Oakland public schools through KDFC’s Playground Pop Up program. A short documentary, Friction, made in collaboration with Meridian Hill Pictures, profiles their early educational outreach in Washington D.C.’s Mundo Verde Public Charter School. A full-length debut album, resolve, was released in 2018, through Bandcamp.

Friction is definitely hip: they have an active social media presence, blog, online videos of covers they play of pop songs by The Beatles, Lady Gaga, Radiohead, and others; they play concerts in clubs and nontraditional venues; and they’ve done gigs like an Intel event earlier this year and the Google holiday party on Dec. 7. (Machiz says about Google: “They found us on the internet, probably through a Google search on string quartets? We don’t have an “in” with them. It’s a mystery to me how people find us.”)

Read the full article at www.sfcv.org.