By Daniel Buckwalter

Leave it to Delgani String Quartet to find musical riches in places no one thinks to look.

Take, for instance, the group’s season-opening We the People program, which finished a five-concert, four-city run with a pair of concerts in the sanctuary of First Church of Christ, Scientists, on Sept. 27 and 28.

It was a nod to this country’s 250th anniversary, yes, but Delgani found depth and quality in the contrasting styles of four U.S. composers who perhaps the average classical music fan may not have not heard of, or, if those in attendance knew of them, probably not the all the works performed. It made for a fascinating concert that anyone can revisit on Delgani’s website.

And Delgani — violinist and now author Anthea Kreston (more on that later), fellow violinist Jannie Wei, violist Amanda Grimm and cellist Eric Alterman — were, as always, in perfect form.

There was the delicate opening piece, Coleridge Taylor Parkinson’s Quartet No. 1 (Calvary), as well as Philip Glass’ lush and melodic Quartet Satz. After intermission there was the marvelous four-movement Piano Quintet in F# with guest pianist Maria Garcia, a piece that even Delgani’s members confessed they had only recently become aware of.

The piece that captivated me most was Raven Chacon’s The Journey of the Horizontal People. I strongly encourage everyone to revisit this concert on Delgani’s website and concentrate on this piece, because I can’t do this music proper justice.

Chacon is a 48-year-old member of the Navajo Nation, who lives in New Mexico. He is known for his composition of chamber music and experimental noise music. In 2022, he became the first Native American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his composition Voiceless Mass.

For The Journey of the Horizontal People, Chacon reached finto the vast silence of the desert, the only sounds coming from the wind and animals. For urban dwellers like myself, this piece is not coherent in the conventional sense (and Alterman noted that the score itself is unique), but after understanding some of the backstory to it, it’s easier to align everything in your mind’s eye.

The Journey of the Horizontal People is a narrative about a group of wanderers traveling from west to east across the written page, moving against the sun but bound by time.

As the travelers search for other clans sharing their beliefs and customs, they eventually become the very people they are seeking through their passage of time, and the cluster of travelers begins to splinter.

Indeed, the piece is intentionally structured so that the four string players inevitably lose their place and drift apart from one another as the performance progresses. All four Delgani players were spread throughout the sanctuary by music’s end.

It is a wonderful and very different piece of music, and the We the People is a testament to the wonderful diversity of music this country offers — something Delgani String Quartet is exceptional at finding and playing.

The We the People concerts at First Church of Christ, Scientist can be found at Delgani.org. Kreston’s memoir, Crescendo: Chronicles of an Adventurous Violinist, is available for pre-order in paperback or by kindle, at Amazon.com. The title will be officially released on Oct. 27.