Schubert Club Mix, Walker Art Center, and Your Classical Minnesota Public Radio present
Kronos Quartet
Fifty for the Future
Night One: New Global Voices
Saturday, March 19, 2022, 7:30 PM
The Fitzgerald Theater, 10 East Exchange Street, St Paul
Kronos Quartet
David Harrington, violin
John Sherba, violin
Hank Dutt, viola
Sunny Yang, cello
Brian H. Scott, Lighting Designer
Scott Fraser, Sound Designer
Fifty for the Future
Saturday March 19: New Global Voices
Peni Candra Rini (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Maduswara
Aleksandra Vrebalov / My Desert, My Rose
Nicole Lizée / Another Living Soul
Jlin (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Little Black Book
Aftab Darvishi / Daughters of Sol
Aruna Narayan (arr. Reena Esmail) / Mishra Pilu
Soo Yeon Lyuh / Yessori (Sound from the Past)
Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Tegere Tulon: I. Funtukuru
Approximately 70 minutes with no intermission.
All works on these programs were written for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. Program subject to change.
Kronos’s two distinct concerts on March 19 & 20 are drawn from the diverse and dazzling array of Kronos’s Fifty for the Future project. Tonight’s New Global Voices features compelling scores by international composers relatively new to Minnesota audiences. Tomorrow night's program, Old Friends, spotlights composers known here through their past Walker and other Twin Cities performances.
About Kronos’ Fifty for the Future
In 2015, the Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA) launched Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, an education and legacy project that is commissioning—and distributing for free—the first learning library of contemporary repertoire for string quartet. Designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals, fifty new works have been commissioned, and scores and parts, as well as supplemental learning materials that include recordings, videos, performance notes, and composer interviews, are available on 50FTF.kronosquartet.org. Lead partner Carnegie Hall and an adventurous group of project partners, including presenters, academic institutions, foundations, and individuals, have joined forces with KPAA to support this exciting program.
About the Work
Peni Candra Rini (b. 1983)
Maduswara (2020)
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976)
Peni Candra Rini is the daughter of a master puppeteer from East Java Indonesia, and one of few female contemporary composers, songwriters, poets, and vocalists who performs sinden, a soloist-female style of gamelan singing. Strongly committed to preserving and sharing the musical traditions of her country, Candra Rini has created many musical compositions for vocals, gamelan, and karawitan, and has collaborated with various artists worldwide, including Katsura Kan, Noriko Omura, Aki Bando, Kiyoko Yamamoto (JP), Found Sound Nation New York, Elena Moon Park (USA), Ali Tekbas (Turkey), Mehdi Nassouli (Morocco), Asma Ghanem (Palestine), Rodrigo Parejo (Spain), among many others.
Candra Rini has collaborated with various gamelan groups from all over the world, and has performed at major festivals including Mascot SIPA Solo International Performing Arts 2016, TEDx Ubud 2019, Big Ears Festival 2019, Mapping Melbourne 2018 Multicultural Art Festival, International Gamelan Festival 2018 Surakarta, Indonesian Tong-Festival Festival 2018 in The Hague, Holland Festival 2017, WOMADelaide festival 2014 in Adelaide, Spoleto Dei Duo Mondi Festival 2013, and Lincoln Center White Light Festival 2011. Her recorded albums include Ayom (2019), Timur (2018), Agni (2017), Mahabharata - Kurusetra War (2016), Daughter of the Ocean (2016), Bhumi (2015), Sekar (2012), and Bramara (2010).
In 2012, Candra Rini completed an artist residency at the California Art Institute with funding from the Asian Cultural Council. During that time, she appeared as a guest artist at eight American universities and participated in master classes with vocal master Meredith Monk. In addition to this extensive work as a performer, Candra Rini is also a lecturer in the Karawitan Department, a Doctoral Candidate for Musical Arts at the Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) in Surakarta.
About Maduswara, Peni Candra Rini writes:
“Javanese society’s consideration of what is in vogue has changed, and the decline of appreciation in the traditional arts has had a major impact on the existence of the female Javanese singer (sindhen); it has impacted both the singer and the audience. Today’s listeners of karawitan has become accustomed to the phenomena of nggantung rebab, which is found in the coasts of island Java far from the palaces (keraton). The phenomena of nggantung rebab is when people expect karawitan concerts to offer musical pieces (gending) with hard rhythms, songs that follow a fast tempo like those found in discotheques where visitors get drunk. The rebab is a subtle and old-fashioned instrument and is beginning to be eliminated, reflecting the move away from more delicate presentation gending. The impact is a generational gap where younger singers feel they do not need to study the classical vocabulary because it is rarely used.
“This discourse continues in contemporary karawitan, as found in campursari music, which plays the melodies of karawitan with MIDI instruments and electric keyboards. This is because those instruments are very practical, easy to carry, and also cheaper than a gamelan set. Campursari dominated the scene in the 90s and 2000s, pioneered by the late Manthous through CSGK (Campur Sari Gunung Kidul), and many commercial recordings were made and sold during that time. But many believe that campursari fails to represent the classical gamelan repertoire. Out of campursari came a generation of pesinden who were considered to have below average singing ability because the sound they produced were discordant in tone to and not in accordance with the rules of Javanese gamelan. Because of this, sindhen singing campursari are not taken seriously in art schools, a serious problem considering diversity is already lacking in those schools.
“The emergence of social media has given pesindhen access to self-promotion, which the singers now readily use. But what appears on social media often does not represent real life, and are not true achievements or true representations of the singer’s abilities. Sindhen now have the added pressure of celebrity culture, and are adored for beauty and ability to dance on stage, with flawless make-up and frenzied lights, and her duties as a singer and orator of the poetry of life takes second fiddle.
“Maduswara was arranged to encourage this generation of pesindhen to realize their duty as the conveyor of the universal values of life because, whether they are aware or not, these artists shape the spirit of the nation.”
Aleksandra Vrebalov (b. 1970)
My Desert, My Rose (2015)
Aleksandra Vrebalov, a native of the former Yugoslavia, left Serbia in 1995 and now lives in New York City. She has written more than 80 works, ranging from concert music, to opera and modern dance, to music for film. Her works have been commissioned and/or performed by the Kronos Quartet, Serbian National Theater, Carnegie Hall, Moravian Philharmonic, Belgrade Philharmonic and Providence Festival Ballet. Vrebalov is a fellow of MacDowell Colony, Rockefeller Bellagio Center, New York’s New Dramatists, American Opera Projects, Other Minds Festival, and Tanglewood. Her awards include The Harvard Fromm Commission, The American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Fellowship, Barlow Endowment Commission, MAP Fund, Vienna Modern Masters, Meet the Composer, and Douglas Moore Fellowship. Her works have been recorded for Nonesuch, Cantaloupe, Innova, Centaur Records, Vienna Modern Masters and Ikarus Films.
Vrebalov’s collaborative work with director Bill Morrison, Beyond Zero (1914–1918), was commissioned and premiered by Kronos at U.C. Berkeley’s Cal Performances in April 2014 and had its European premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival that summer. Her string quartet …hold me, neighbor, in this storm… was written for and recorded by Kronos for the album Floodplain. Her string quartet Pannonia Boundless, also for Kronos, was published by Boosey & Hawkes as part of the Kronos Collection, and recorded for the album Kronos Caravan. In 2018, Vrebalov wrote Missa Supratext for Kronos and SF Girls Chorus.
Vrebalov’s cross-disciplinary interests led to participation at residencies and fellowships that include the MacDowell Colony, Djerassi, The Hermitage, New York’s New Dramatists, Rockefeller Bellagio Center, American Opera Projects, Other Minds Festival, and Tanglewood. Between 2007 and 2011, Vrebalov created and led Summer in Sombor (Serbia), a weeklong composition workshop with the South Oxford Six composers’ collective that she co-founded in 2002 in NYC. The workshop facilitated the creation of over fifty new works by young composers from Europe and the USA. Most recently, Vrebalov joined Muzikhane (House of Music) founded by composer Sahba Aminikia in Mardin and Nusaybin, towns on Turkish/Syrian border, and made music with young refugees from Syria and Iraq.
As a Serbian expat Vrebalov is the recipient of the Golden Emblem from the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for lifelong dedication and contribution to her native country’s culture.
About My Desert, My Rose, Vrebalov writes:
“My Desert, My Rose consists of a series of patterns open in length, meter, tempo, and dynamics, different for each performer. The unfolding of the piece is almost entirely left to each performer’s sensibility and responsiveness to the parts of other members of the group. Instinct and precision are each equally important in the performance of the piece. The patterns are (notated as) suggested rather than fixed musical lines, so the flow and the length of the piece are unique to each performance. The lines merge and align to separate and then meet again, each time in a more concrete and tighter way. The piece ends in a metric unison, like a seemingly coincidental meeting of the lines predestined to reunite. It is like a journey of four characters that start in distinctly different places, who, after long searching and occasional, brief meeting points, end up in the same space, time, language.
“The writing of this piece, in a form as open and as tightly coordinated at the same time, was possible thanks to 20 years of exposure to rehearsal and performance habits of the Kronos Quartet, a group for which I have written 13 out of 14 of my pieces involving string quartet.”
Nicole Lizée (b. 1973)
Another Living Soul (2016)
Called “a brilliant musical scientist” (CBC), “breathtakingly inventive” (Sydney Times Herald, Australia), and lauded for “creating a stir with listeners for her breathless imagination and ability to capture Gen-X and beyond generation” (Winnipeg Free Press), award winning composer and video artist composer Nicole Lizée creates new music from an eclectic mix of influences including the earliest MTV videos, turntablism, rave culture, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Alexander McQueen, thrash metal, early video game culture, 1960s psychedelia and 1960s modernism. She is fascinated by the glitches made by outmoded and well-worn technology and captures these glitches, notates them and integrates them into live performance.
Lizée’s compositions range from works for orchestra and solo turntablist featuring DJ techniques fully notated and integrated into a concert music setting, to other unorthodox instrument combinations that include the Atari 2600 video game console, omnichords, stylophones, Simon™, vintage board games, and karaoke tapes. In the broad scope of her evolving oeuvre she explores such themes as malfunction, reviving the obsolete, and the harnessing of imperfection and glitch to create a new kind of precision.
In 2001 Lizée received a Master of Music degree from McGill University. After a decade and a half of composition, her commission list of over 50 works is varied and distinguished and includes the Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, the BBC Proms, the San Francisco Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Banff Centre, Bang On A Can, So Percussion, and numerous others.
Lizée was recently awarded the prestigious 2019 Prix Opus for Composer of the Year. In 2017 she received the SOCAN Jan. V. Matejcek Award. In 2013 she received the Canada Council for the Arts Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music. She is a two-time JUNO nominee for composition of the year. She is a Lucas Artists Fellow (California) and a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow (Italy). In 2015 she was selected by acclaimed composer and conductor Howard Shore to be his protégée as part of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards. This Will Not Be Televised, her seminal piece for chamber ensemble and turntables, placed in the 2008 UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers’ Top 10 Works.
Lizée was the Composer in Residence at Vancouver’s Music on Main from 2016–18. She is a Korg Canada and Arturia artist.
About Another Living Soul, Lizée writes:
“Another Living Soul is stop motion animation for string quartet. Considered one of the most complex and idiosyncratic art forms, stop motion demands imagination, craft, isolation, an unwavering vision, fortitude, and copious amounts of time. The act of beginning the process invites both angst at the daunting task that has just begun and a kind of zen acceptance of the labyrinthine road ahead.
“The earliest stop motion—those beings and worlds created by Harryhausen, Starevich, Clokey, et al—still impresses and inspires. Oozing creativity, their work has a rough-hewn beauty and a timeless enchantment.
“Throughout its evolution, the end result has always been incrementally imbuing vitality and life to something devoid of any such spark on its own. The close quarters, intimacy, and camaraderie of the people who work in this art form are mirrored by the scrutiny and care they afford their tiny subjects and the attention to minutiae required to render a work that is lifelike. The impossible becomes possible—souls emerge from where once there were none.”
Jlin (b. 1987)
Little Black Book (2018)
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976)
Jlin, one of the most prominent electronic producers of the current generation, first appeared on Planet Mu’s second Bangs & Works compilation, which had a huge impact on electronic/club music. Though she is known for bringing footwork to a wider audience, Jlin doesn’t consider herself a footwork artist. Hailing from Gary, Indiana, a place close yet distant enough from Chicago to allow her to develop a different perspective on the genre, she has morphed its sounds into something entirely new. Released in 2015, her debut album Dark Energy's innovative sound propelled it to the top of many of the year’s Best Of lists. Jlin’s sophomore album Black Origami was recently released to even greater critical acclaim and attention. In 2017, Jlin also composed the music for a major new dance work by Wayne McGregor, one of the UK’s best known choreographers.
About Little Black Book, Jlin writes:
“I chose the name Little Black Book because there is a black notebook that I own that I literally write down every creative idea I have in it. It is my book of absolute freedom. The book is very special to me, as it was given to me on my twenty-first birthday by my eldest cousin. When Kronos approached me about doing this project I was quite ecstatic, and immediately knew I wanted to take this on from a perspective of absolute freedom of sound. I didn't care how crazy it sounded, I just wanted the instruments and choice of instruments to be free. Freedom was my goal no matter how left-field or unconventional. I love that Kronos decided to play this track as they deemed fit versus trying to follow what I did.”
Aftab Darvishi (b. 1987)
Daughters of Sol (2017)
Aftab Darvishi was born in Tehran, Iran in 1987. She started playing violin at age five, and as she grew older, she got in touch with other instruments like the kamancheh (Iranian string instrument) and classical piano. Darvishi has studied Music Performance at University of Tehran, Composition at Royal Conservatory of The Hague and Composing for film and Carnatic Music (South Indian music) at Conservatory of Amsterdam.
Darvishi has presented her music in various festivals in Europe and Asia working with various ensembles. She has also attended various artistic residencies, such AiEP Contemporary Dance Company (Milan), Kinitiras studio (Athens), and Akropoditi Dance center (Syros). She is a former member of KhZ ensemble; an experimental electronic ensemble with supervision of Yannis Kyriakides that has performed in various festivals such as the Holland Festival. After her graduation, she has been regularly invited as a guest lecturer at the University of Tehran.
In 2014, Darvishi was short-listed for the 20th Young Composer meeting in Apeldoorn (Netherlands) and in 2015, she won the Music Education award from Listhus Artist Residency to hold workshops for presenting Persian music to music teachers at Music School of Fjallabyggd, Iceland. In 2016, Darvishi was awarded the prestigious Tenso Young Composers Award for her piece And the world stopped Lacking you... for a cappella choir.
About Daughters of Sol, Aftab Darvishi writes:
“Daughters of Sol is inspired by a poem by Ahmad Shamloo who is a Contemporary Iranian poet. This piece contains gentle transitions and detailed changes, which leads to dissolving of different shades and colors. It is a constant evolution between shadows and lights. It is a journey about conveying gentle circular movements, which I think it resembles cycles of life. We evolve and dissolve in gentle and harsh conversions. We change colors, yet we tend to go back to our roots despite of our differences.”
Aruna Narayan (b. 1955)
Mishra Pilu (2020)
Arranged by Reena Esmail (b. 1983)
Born in Mumbai, India, Aruna Narayan Kalle plays the Sarangi, an ancient North Indian bowed instrument is considered one of the most difficult to master, and one of the more undeveloped instruments in both its physical and musical aspects. Its traditional role as an accompaniment instrument for vocal music kept it further in the background. Narayan’s father, renowned Sarangi maestro Pandit Ram Narayan, emerged as its messiah, and due to his efforts, the Sarangi is now well ensconced in the mainstream of the Indian performing arts.
Although Narayan began her music training at the rather late age of eighteen, she made fast progress studying intensively with her father for several years. She has fully captured her father’s disciplined, serious style, yet has also developed a unique voice for her instrument with a warm and generous musical temperament. Her playing is impressive in its subtlety, precision and grace as well as in its powerful and weighty bowing. As a recipient of Pandit Ram Narayan’s musical legacy, she has consistently worked towards maintaining a highly respectable profile for her instrument.
Narayan was recently a featured soloist in a unique presentation of the music of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, performed by Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. An hourlong documentary film about this project with an exclusive profile of her has been aired by the CBC and the Bravo channels on several occasions. Her music has been featured in several international and Hollywood films and she regularly teaches in the school system introducing young people to Indian music and the Sarangi. Her recordings are available on the Nimbus (UK) and Zig-Zag (France) labels. In addition to her international performances, she frequently appears in the National Programme of Music on Doordarshan (TV) and other networks in India. Presently she resides in Toronto, Canada where she teaches and performs.
About Mishra Pilu, Aruna Narayan writes:
“This piece is based on Raag Mishra Pilu. Mishra means a mixture of a few different raags that are woven into a central theme. Raag Pilu has a textbook ascending and descending structure. However, because it allows for the inclusion of all twelve notes, it is generally conducive to a wider range of improvisation than the traditional discipline of a raag.
“Since the Kronos Quartet is known for their many successful collaborations with different genres of music, I felt that Mishra Pilu would be a perfect representation of an Indian classical music bouquet! I have maintained the usual format – the “Alaap” which is the first slow movement, followed by a “bandish,” a composition set to a 16-beat rhythm cycle called Teental. Several of these cycles are devoted to a few different raags, returning to the principal line in Pilu.”
Soo Yeon Lyuh (b. 1980)
Yessori (Sound from the Past) (2016)
Soo Yeon Lyuh is a master of the haegeum, a two-stringed Korean bowed instrument. She possesses not only flawless technique and a full command of the haegeum’s traditional repertoire, but is also widely recognized for promoting the creation of new pieces for haegeum. For 12 years, Lyuh was a member of South Korea’s National Gugak Center, the foremost institution for the preservation of Korean traditional music. Since then, Lyuh has endeavored to weave authentic styles into new musical domains, relocating to the Bay Area and drawing inspiration from its dynamic improvised music scene. Her contributions have sparked the creation of new repertoire for haegeum—the lifeblood of any instrument.
A distinguished scholar, Lyuh earned her Ph.D. in Korean Traditional Music from Seoul National University. She is currently a scholar-in-residence at Mills College. As a lecturer, she is sought after for her ability to impart valuable insight and intercultural understanding to those unfamiliar with gugak; her dissertation researched the changing role of haegeum in Korean orchestras beginning with early court traditions. As a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, Lyuh arrived with ten haegeum to loan to participants in her seminars. Lyuh has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (2011–12).
Born and raised in Daegu, South Korea, Lyuh’s early musical studies were typical for those in her country. She took piano lessons from the age of three, a way to “acquire Western music’s grammar,” and was performing as a soloist with the Daegu Philharmonic Orchestra by the time she was twelve. Still, Lyuh was unsatisfied with the piano and switched to the violin—only to quit music completely three years later. When she missed playing, her mother suggested taking up a traditional instrument as a hobby, an alternative to the pressurized and competitive culture of classical music. She had no idea that it would become the pursuit that would define her future. “I think that it will be impossible to conquer the haegeum in my lifetime,” says Lyuh. “That is because it becomes harder the more I play it. The instrument continues to reveal itself. It is full of untapped possibilities.”
About Yessori, Lyuh writes:
“When I first played the haegeum for Kronos violinist David Harrington, he commented that the sound seemed ‘ancient,’ and commissioned me to write a piece that explores aspects of Korean traditional music. With his observation in mind, I composed Yessori (옛소리), which is Korean for ‘sound from the past.’
“The first time I experienced Korean traditional music, the relative pitch relationships and fluid nature of the rhythmic cycles felt chaotic, perhaps because of my background in Western music. However, over the past two decades of studying the haegeum, I came to love these unique qualities and am excited to share them through Yessori.
“My compositional process began with improvisations on the haegeum in the style of traditional Korean music. I then adapted the distinctive techniques, vibrato, and articulations for string quartet.”
Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté (b. 1974)
Funtukuru from Tegere Tulon (2018)
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976)
Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté possesses one of the most beautiful, versatile, and expressive voices of West Africa. A jelimuso (female jeli or ‘griot’ ) from Mali, she has acquired a cult following as the charismatic singer of Trio Da Kali, an acoustic trio which was formed specially to collaborate with the Kronos Quartet, receiving rapturous reviews for her work on their collaborative award-winning album Ladilikan and for her moving performances with Trio Da Kali, who have toured widely in Europe and the USA to critical acclaim.
Hawa’s charismatic voice is emphatically 21st century, but it is also steeped in the rich heritage of Mali’s griots, the hereditary musicians that date back to founding of the Mali Empire in the 13th century. She was born into a celebrated griot family, the Diabatés of Kela, a village in southwest Mali famous for its music. The Kela Diabatés have a formidable reputation as singers, instrumentalists, and reciters of oral epic histories, with many legendary names from the pre-colonial era to-date, and today Hawa is the torch bearer of that great tradition.
Hawa’s father Kassé Mady Diabaté was known for his entrancing singing, moving his listeners to tears (from which he gets his nickname, Kassé, ‘to weep’), a quality that Hawa has inherited, along with the nickname. Her great-aunt was Sira Mory Diabaté, considered the most important Malian female vocalist of the 20th century, a prolific composer whose songs, like Kanimba (on the album Ladilikan) have become griot classics.
Hawa Kassé Mady was born in Kangaba, a small bustling town which was once the seat of power of the Mali Empire, only a few kilometers from Kela. Hawa’s mother Kani Sinayogo—of blacksmith, not griot heritage—was an accomplished and knowledgeable midwife. She was well-informed about organic remedies. “Kani made me drink lots of sheep milk when I was growing up” says Hawa. “She told me that sheep’s milk would give me a beautiful singing voice!”
Moving back and forth between town and village, Hawa had the benefit of both worlds. In Kela she participated in the young girls’ tradition of handclapping songs and dances (tègèrè tulon) from which she learned many performance skills. Hawa credits the tègèrè tulon as her true schooling, learning not just about music and coordination but also about how to negotiate the social norms of her culture, particularly as a woman. Her talent as a singer was also nurtured by her father and her great aunt, from whom she learned the art of improvisation, and the vast and complex repertoire of the griots.
Settling her family to Bamako, the capital, in her teens, Hawa began performing on the wedding party circuit, where she remains much in demand. Apart from one cassette released on the local market, Hawa only ever recorded with her father, in the chorus of his album Kassi Kasse (2003), recorded on location in Kela. The power and beauty of her voice shone through the album, which won a Grammy nomination. But it was not until Trio Da Kali was formed, with the specific aim of collaborating with the Kronos Quartet and with the support of the Aga Khan Music Initiative, that Hawa’s remarkable singing would find a platform in its own right.
Hawa’s latest musical project, Tegere Tulon, takes her back to her roots and forwards into the realm of composition. Commissioned to compose a piece for Kronos’ Fifty for the Future project, Hawa decided to revisit the handclapping songs of her childhood, which were such formative experiences for her, and which are gradually dying out except in remote villages.
Performed exclusively by girls outdoors in a circle, usually on moonlit nights, the handclapping songs are normally very short, consisting of one or two phrases repeated in call and response, often involving counting, each one with its own dance. Children make them up spontaneously, using the rhythms of language to generate musical rhythm, with playful movements, some individual, some coordinated by the whole circle. Building on her own memories of the handclapping songs she used to do as a young girl in Kela, Hawa has created four new pieces in handclapping style, which she hopes will encourage Malians not to abandon this rich cultural heritage. The lyrics are humorous and poignant—they talk about the importance of family, the teasing relationship between kalime “cross-cousins” (a man’s children and his sister’s children are cross-cousins), a girl who loves dancing so much she falls into a well and then climbs out, and how long it takes to get to Funtukuru, her husband’s village, where she went to film handclapping.
Program note by Professor Lucy Durán
About Kronos Quartet
For more than 45 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet – David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Sunny Yang (cello) – has combined a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually reimagine the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the world’s most celebrated and influential ensembles, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 60 recordings, collaborating with many of the world’s most accomplished composers and performers, and commissioning more than 1,000 works and arrangements for string quartet. Kronos has received over 40 awards, including the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre Prizes, some of the most prestigious awards given to musicians.
Since 1973, Kronos has built an eclectic repertoire for string quartet, performing and recording works by 20th-century masters (Sofia Gubaidulina, Alfred Schnittke), contemporary composers (Sahba Aminikia, Nicole Lizée, Vladimir Martynov, Aleksandra Vrebalov), jazz legends (Thelonious Monk, Maria Schneider), rock artists (Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend), and many others.
Integral to Kronos’ work is a series of long-running, in-depth associations with many of the world’s foremost composers and musicians. Terry Riley’s work with Kronos includes Salome Dances for Peace (1985–86) and Sun Rings (2002). Kronos has also collaborated extensively with Philip Glass, premiering many of his quartets and recording an all-Glass CD (1995); with Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov, who has written more than 25 pieces for Kronos; with Azerbaijan’s Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, featured on the album Mugam Sayagi (2005); and with Steve Reich, whose string quartets, Different Trains (1989), and Triple Quartet were written for and recorded by Kronos.
Kronos has shared the stage with performers from around the world such as Chinese pipa player Wu Man, Azeri vocalist Alim Qasimov, Bollywood “playback singer” Asha Bhosle, tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq, and visual artist Trevor Paglen. Kronos has also performed and/or recorded with the likes of Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg, Angélique Kidjo, Tom Waits, k.d. lang, Betty Carter, Van Dyke Parks, and Caetano Veloso. In dance, famed choreographers Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Alonzo King, Twyla Tharp, and Eiko & Koma have created pieces with Kronos’ music.
Kronos has been featured prominently in film soundtracks, including the Academy Award–nominated documentaries How to Survive a Plague (2012) and Dirty Wars (2013). Kronos also recorded scores by Clint Mansell (The Fountain and Requiem for a Dream), Philip Glass (Dracula), Terry Riley (Hochelaga terre des âmes) and Jacob Garchik (The Green Fog). A Thousand Thoughts: A Live Documentary with the Kronos Quartet, written and directed by Sam Green and Joe Bini, debuted at Sundance Film Festival in 2018.
The quartet tours extensively each year, appearing in the world’s most prestigious concert halls, clubs, and festivals. Kronos’ discography on Nonesuch Records is prolific and wide-ranging, including three Grammy-winning albums – Terry Riley’s Sun Rings (2019), Landfall with Laurie Anderson (2018) and Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite featuring Dawn Upshaw (2003). AmongKronos’ recent releases are Ladilikan (World Circuit) with Trio Da Kali, an ensemble of griot musicians from Mali; Clouded Yellow (Cantaloupe Music), a collection of Michael Gordon’s works for Kronos; Placeless (Kirkelig Kulturverksted) with Iranian vocalists Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat; and Long Time Passing: Kronos & Friends Celebrate Pete Seeger (Smithsonian Folkways).
The nonprofit Kronos Performing Arts Association manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including the commissioning of new works, concert tours and home season performances, education programs, and the annual Kronos Festival. In 2015, Kronos launched Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, an education and legacy project that is commissioning—and distributing online for free—50 new works for string quartet written by composers from around the world.
For the Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association:
Janet Cowperthwaite, Executive Director
Mason Dille, Development Manager
Dana Dizon, Business Manager
Sarah Donahue, Operations Manager
Scott Fraser, Senior Sound Designer
Reshena Liao, Creative Projects Manager
Nikolás McConnie-Saad, Artistic Administrator
Brian Mohr, Sound Designer, Technical Manager
Kären Nagy, Strategic Initiatives Director
Brian H. Scott, Lighting Designer
Contact:
Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association
P. O. Box 225340
San Francisco, CA 94122-5340 USA
kronosquartet.org
facebook.com/kronosquartet
instagram.com/kronos_quartet
twitter.com/kronosquartet
The Kronos Quartet records for Nonesuch Records.
Your Classical Minnesota Public Radio Acknowledgments
Minnesota Public Radio Thanks
Schubert Club Acknowledgments
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
Walker Art Center Acknowledgments
Walker Art Center Producers' Council
Thank you, Walker members, for your generous support.
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