The Eclipse Quartet: Hollow Flame

The Eclipse Quartet returns to HMC with a concert that includes world premieres from Bill Alves and Boston-based composer Howard Frazin and West Coast premieres of two quartets by Los Angeles-based composer Akshaya Avril Tucker.

Sunday, March 30, 2025, 7 p.m.
Drinkward Recital Hall

Clockwise from top left: Sara Parkins, Maggie Parkins, Alma Lisa Fernandez, Sarah Thornblade. Photo courtesy of the Eclipse Quartet.


Winners of four 2023-24 San Francisco Classical Voice Audience Awards, the Eclipse Quartet is an ensemble dedicated to the music of  twentieth century and present day composers. The scope of their repertoire spans works from John Cage and Morton Subotnick to collaborations with the singers Beck and Caetano Veloso. Eclipse has the versatility to cross genres from works that include electronics and computer processing to the jazz compositions of Grammy award winning pianist Billy Childs.  The Quartet has performed frequently on both coasts and has participated in festivals such as the Look and Listen Festival in NYC, the Festival for New American Music in Sacramento, the Scarlatti Festival in Naples, Italy, the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Festival, the Angel City Jazz Festival and the Hear and Now Festival in Los Angeles.

The repertoire of Eclipse contains works by such dynamic composers  as Roger Reynolds, Julia Wolfe, Ben Johnston, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Annie Gosfield, John Zorn, Fred Frith, Philip Glass, John King and Lois V. Vierk. They have premiered new works by Sarah Gibson, Zeena Parkins, Carla Kihlstedt, Justin Haynes, Gernot Wolfgang, Alisson Krussmma and David Jaffe and Fred Frith.

Eclipse has recorded the string quartets of Zeena Parkins for the Tzadik label and Morton Feldman’s epic Piano And String Quartet piece with pianist Vicki Ray on Bridge Records. In 2013 Eclipse released a disc of three works for percussion and string quartet with percussionist William Winant on New World Records as recipients of the Aaron Copland Fund for Music Recording Grant. In 2014 the MicroFest label released Ruminations featuring Eclipse’s recording of Ben Johnston’s Revised Standards. In 2019 Cold Blue released Separations Songs a concert length piece by Matt Sargent for double quartet.

The Eclipse Quartet have been Artists in Residence at Mills College in Oakland California and at the historic artists’ retreat Villa Aurora in Los Angeles and University of California, Davis.

Sarah Thornblade is the associate principal second violin of the Los Angeles Chamber orchestra. She is an avid chamber musician. In addition to the Eclipse Quartet, she has performed with Xtet, Camerata Pacifica, Jacaranda and the Auros group for new music (Boston). She has also performed with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Emmanuel Music, and is a former member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. Her playing has been described by the L.A. Times as “rapturously winning” and has been called “a marvelously versatile violinist” by the Santa Barbara News.

Thornblade is a former member of the Denali string quartet and a former founding member of the Arianna String Quartet, which has been a grand prize winner at the Fischoff National, Coleman and Carmel chamber music competitions. She has performed through the country and abroad at festivals including Tanglewood and Spoleto festivals; the Look and Listen, Hear Now and Oregon Bach festivals; and the Norfolk, Steamboat Springs and Portland chamber music festivals. She has collaborated with artists such as Gilbert Kalish, Jeffrey Kahane, Andres Cardenes, Randall Hodgkinson and Warren Jones.

Thornblade is on the faculty of Pomona College and is also an active recording musician for film and television. She holds degrees from Indiana University and Northern Illinois University and studied with Miriam Fried, Mathias Tacke and Shmuel Ashkenasi.

Violinist Sara Parkins is a Grammy award winner for the Best Chamber Music Performance of the complete recordings of the Haydn String Quartets, with the Angeles Quartet. Parkins is also a prizewinner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition with the Stonybrook Piano Trio. Parkins is also a member of the acclaimed Eroica Trio. She has collaborated with prominent new music composers and performers such as Anthony Braxton, Mark Dresser, Zeena Parkins and Guy Klucevsek. In addition, Parkins has performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York City.

She is currently principal second violinist with the Pasadena Symphony, is an active studio musician, and was a member of the Rosetti String Quartet in Los Angeles. Parkins has performed at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre, Strings in the Mountains, and the Bravo Festival in Vail, Colorado. Internationally, Parkins has participated at the Taklos Fesitval in Zurich, The Wels Unlimited Festival, the Festival Internationale  de Cadeques in Spain and in Eisenstadt, Austria. Parkins is featured on Phillips Classics, Victo, Avant and Tzadik recording labels. She attended the Curtis Institute of Music and SUNY at Stony Brook.

Alma Lisa Fernandez, violist, attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and UCLA, where she received a Master’s Degree in Viola Performance. She performs regularly with such ensembles as the LA Opera Orchestra, LA Master Chorale, Long Beach Symphony, and Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician, she has been described as “…a soulful violist. (–LA Times, Mark Swed), and has performed with chamber music Los Angeles based ensembles including the Denali String Quartet, the California String Quartet, and the Capitol Ensemble.

Fernandez has been featured as a soloist with the Pepperdine University Orchestra, the Jacaranda Chamber Music series, People Inside Electronics, and Electronics Live! at UC Riverside, where she premiered new works for Viola & Electronics. Fernandez is also active in the Los Angeles recording industry, having played for numerous motion picture soundtracks, television shows, and record albums. She is currently professor of viola at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA.

An uncommonly versatile musician, cellist Maggie Parkins is equally at home performing chamber music, orchestral music and the avant-garde, and has concertized throughout the Americas and Europe. In addition to being a member of the Eclipse Quartet, Parkins is also the cellist of the Los Angeles based Mojave Piano Trio and Brightwork new music ensemble and the Smudges. Her interest in music outside the classical tradition has led her to perform with Todd Sickafoose, the Jazz Passengers, the Anthony Braxton Tri Centric Ensemble, percussonist Alex Cline and The Phantom Orchard Orchestra.

As an orchestral performer, Parkins has performed under the batons of Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Bernstein, Simon Rattle and Andre Previn. An active recording artist as well, Parkins has recorded extensively with harpist Zeena Parkins and with accordionist Guy Klusevsek and can be heard on the Tzadik, Avan, Bridge, Cold Blue and Victo labels. Parkins has performed around the world at prestigious venues including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre, Festival Internacional de Musica de Cadaques (Spain), Heidelberg Castle Festival, Spoleto (USA and Italy), the Taktlos Festival (Switzerland), and the Bach Aria Festival in New York. She attended the Eastman School of Music and  has a doctorate from SUNY at Stony Brook. A dedicated educator, she taught cello and chamber music at the University of California,  Irvine for 19 years and currently teaches cello at Pomona College.



HMC is deeply grateful for the generous support that created The Ken Stevens ’61 Founding Class Concert Series.