Melinda Martinez Becker’s New Mexican and Jewish heritage has shaped her career as a performer of art song in Spanish, Ladino, Yiddish and a variety of other languages. As a soloist and chamber musician, she is recognized for her expressive interpretations of diverse repertoire, such as baroque, new, and experimental music.

Melinda’s collaborations with emerging new music composers and ensembles include projects with Nicolas Lell Benavides, Emily Koh, Friction Quartet, Brian Baumbusch, the Musical Art Quintet, and as a soloist with the Ukiah Symphony Orchestra.
She is dedicated to performing, championing, and the education of music by underrepresented groups, including BIPOC and female composers. In 2023 she will join forces with Friction Quartet to record Canto Caló, an album of music by Nicolas Lell Benavides, on Innova Recordings.

Friction Quartet exists to modernize the chamber music experience and expand the string quartet repertoire. Friction achieves this mission by commissioning new works, curating imaginative programs, collaborating with artists, and presenting interactive educational outreach. Joshua Kosman (San Francisco Chronicle) has declared them, “The Bay Area’s redoubtable new-music ensemble.”
Since forming in 2011, Friction has commissioned fifty works for string quartet and given world premiere performances of more than eighty works. They won Second Prize in the 2016 Schoenfeld Competition, were quarter-finalists in the 2015 Fischoff Competition, and placed second at the 2015 Frances Walton Competition.

Friction appears on recordings with National Sawdust Tracks, Innova Records, Albany Records, and Pinna Records. They released their full-length debut album, resolve, in 2018.

Melinda Becker: www.melindabecker.com
Friction Quartet: www.frictionquartet.com/

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