North Sea String Quartet & Roland Satterwhite

To bow or not to bow.

What drives a string quartet to collaborate with a viola player? Don’t they have one in house? For starters the North Sea String Quartet isn’t your ordinary string quartet. Despite their classical training they like traversing alternate musical paths, from Celtic inspired folk, to pop and jazz.

And Roland Satterwhite is quite the maverick. He hasn’t wielded a bow in a long while. Rather the American musician (who has operated from Berlin since 2008) is a singer-songwriter who has helped himself to an unusual instrument. He’s a fingerpicking singer who plays his viola the way you’d expect one to play a mandolin or a guitar. This choice isn’t a gimmick in the least, however, because it results in a unique sound that blends seamlessly with both contemporary sonic experiments and swampy delta blues.

But his play also betrays another source of inspiration: African griot music from the river basins of the Gambia, where to fingerpick on instruments like the kora and the n’goni. Clearly NSSQ’s arsenal (four bows) has nothing to fear from Satterwhite. So it’s no surprise they wield them with gusto, providing his singing and picking with lyrical framing or razor-sharp swing as needed.

Formation

Roland Satterwhite – vocals, (viola) violin

North Sea String Quartet
Karin van Kooten – violin
Pablo Rodriguez – violin
Yanna Pelser – viola
Thomas van Geelen – cello