Schubert Club Mix, Walker Art Center, and Your Classical Minnesota Public Radio present
Kronos Quartet
Fifty for the Future
Night Two: Old Friends
Sunday, March 20, 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
Sunday March 20: Old Friends
Missy Mazzoli / Enthusiasm Strategies
Tanya Tagaq (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Excerpt from Sivunittinni
Joan Jeanrenaud / Knock
Terry Riley / This Assortment of Atoms – One Time Only!: Movement 3
Bryce Dessner / Le Bois
Angélique Kidjo (arr. Jacob Garchik) / YanYanKliYan Senamido #2
Rafiq Bhatia / Glimmers (World Premiere)
I. Mylar Tremors
II. Signal Lamps
III. Resonant Light
Philip Glass / Quartet Satz
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 program, Old Friends, features composers known here through their past Walker and other Twin Cities performances. Last night’s program, New Global Voices, highlighted compelling scores by international composers relatively new to Minnesota audiences.
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
Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980)
Enthusiasm Strategies (2019)
Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (New York Times) and “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out New York), Missy Mazzoli has had her music performed globally by the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, violinist Jennifer Koh, LA Opera, New York City Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera and many others. From 2012-2015 she was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia, Gotham Chamber Opera and Music Theatre-Group, and in 2011-2012 was composer-in-residence with the Albany Symphony.
Mazzoli’s 2016 opera Breaking the Waves, based on the film by Lars von Trier and created in collaboration with librettist Royce Vavrek, was commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Beth Morrison Projects. It premiered in September of 2016 and was called “one of the best 21st-century American operas yet” by Opera News, “powerful… dark and daring” by the New York Times, and “savage, heartbreaking and thoroughly original” by the Wall Street Journal. In February 2012 Beth Morrison Projects presented Song from the Uproar, Mazzoli’s first multimedia chamber opera, which had a sold-out run at venerable New York venue The Kitchen. The Wall Street Journal called this work “both powerful and new”, and the New York Times claimed that "in the electric surge of Mazzoli's score you felt the joy, risk and limitless potential of free spirits unbound."
Recent months included the premiere of Missy’s third opera, Proving Up, at Washington National Opera, the premiere of Vespers for a New Dark Age, an extended work for her ensemble Victoire and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche, commissioned by Carnegie Hall, and new works performed by pianist Emanuel Ax, the BBC Symphony, the LA Philharmonic and the Detroit Symphony. Upcoming commissions include new works for Opera Philadelphia, the National Ballet of Canada, Opera Omaha, and New York’s Miller Theatre.
Mazzoli is the recipient of a Fulbright Grant, a 2015 Music grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and four ASCAP young composer awards. Along with composer Ellen Reid, she recently founded Luna Lab, a mentorship program for young female composers in collaboration with the Kaufman Music Center in New York. Mazzoli teaches composition at the Mannes School of Music (The New School), and her works are published by G. Schirmer.
About Enthusiasm Strategies, Missy Mazzoli writes:
“I think of music itself, particularly the music made by the Kronos Quartet, as a strategy for mustering enthusiasm and joy. It’s a way of setting the world in order, a method of carving up time in way that, seemingly by magic, changes our frame of mind, energizes us, and gives us courage and reassurance. In this piece, I tried to combine techniques that were both scary and familiar to me; a cascade of natural harmonics collapses into an ecstatic chorale, which then evaporates into silence. Enthusiasm Strategies was composed for the Kronos Quartet as part of their amazing and important educational initiative Fifty for the Future. I’m honored to contribute to this project and thrilled to be part of the incredible legacy of this quartet.”
Tanya Tagaq (b. 1975)
Sivunittinni (2015)
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976)
Tanya Tagaq’s unique vocal expression is rooted in Inuit throat singing, but her music has as much to do with electronica, industrial and metal influences as it does with traditional culture. She is known for her artistic collaborations that defy genre boundaries. Her contribution to Kronos Quartet’s Fifty for the Future project marks another chapter in a longstanding creative association with the group. Appearances with Kronos have included a performance at the Big Ears Festival (Knoxville, Tennessee) in 2015 and work on the album Tundra Songs.
Her albums make for complex listening, but a string of international awards and accolades attest to her ability to make music that speaks a universal tongue. Tagaq’s album Animism won the Polaris Music Prize in 2014 and a Juno Award in 2015.
In addition to her internationally renowned status as a performer and recording artist, Tagaq also does regular speaking engagements at educational and cultural institutions, including delivering the Pecha Kucha at APAP in 2014. In these lectures, Tagaq discusses her personal experience and creative process, and how her origin in Canada’s arctic shapes her art. Tagaq is the recipient of an honorary doctorate degree from her alma mater, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in Halifax.
About Sivunittinni, Tagaq writes:
“Sivunittinni, or ‘the future ones,’ comes from a part of a poem I wrote for my album, and is the perfect title for this piece. My hope is to bring a little bit of the land to future musicians through this piece. There’s a disconnect in the human condition, a disconnect from nature, and it has caused a great deal of social anxiety and fear, as well as a lack of true meaning of health, and a lack of a relationship with what life is, so maybe this piece can be a little bit of a wake-up.
“Working with the Kronos Quartet has been an honour. We have a symbiosis that allows a lot of growth musically. They teach me so much, I can only hope to reciprocate. Kronos has gifted me the opportunity to take the sounds that live in my body and translate them into the body of instruments. This means so much because the world changes very quickly, and documenting allows future musicians to glean inspiration from our output.”
Joan Jeanrenaud (b. 1956)
Knock (2016)
Cellist and composer Joan Jeanrenaud has been involved in music for over 40 years. Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, she was exposed to the sounds of the blues, Elvis, soul, folk, and classical music. She learned to play her instrument from cellists Peter Spurbeck, Fritz Magg, and Pierre Fournier, studied jazz with David Baker and Joe Henderson, and worked with Kronos Quartet as cellist for 20 years. Now for the past 18 years she has been involved with projects in composition, improvisation, electronics, and multi-disciplinary performance. She has completed more than 70 compositions for cello and small ensembles, many of these multi-media works. Her compositions and recordings are featured in many films, most recently scoring the documentary Born This Way.
Other projects include her installation work ARIA with collaborator Alessandro Moruzzi, which premiered at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Second Time Around, the composition, collaboration, performances, and recording with storyteller Charlie Varon and dramaturge David Ford. Her CD, Strange Toys, released on the Talking House label in 2008, was nominated for a Grammy, and her most recent releases, Pop-Pop, Visual Music, and Second Time Around, appear on her own record label, Deconet Records.
About Knock, Jeanrenaud writes:
“In writing Knock for Kronos and specifically for their Fifty for the Future project, I reflected on my years playing in the group and all the string techniques I learned working with them.
“We were using our instruments in ways we weren't taught in music school. Yet we were always trying to embody the same basic principles of creating the best sound warranted and needed to express the composer's ideas. Whether it was a crunching sound produced by applying intense pressure on the string (that we had spent years trying to avoid!) or the most delicate of pizzicatos produced by caressing the string with the flesh of the thumb, we were always discovering the sounds our instruments could produce and the best way to do so. There was always a new piece with new ideas that we strived to execute and bring to life. Each composer brought challenges to express their ideas in sound and music.
“Learning how to execute and express all these challenges opened an immense world of different approaches to the sound world of our instruments. It is impossible to encompass all these ideas in one piece, so instead I have picked moments that have influenced me and seamlessly entered into my work as composer. “Also I was inspired thinking about all the ‘hard knocks’ we encountered together over the years, but how the music kept us going.”
Terry Riley (b. 1935)
This Assortment of Atoms – One Time Only! (2020)
Movement 3: This Assortment of Atoms – One Time Only!
Terry Riley first came to prominence in 1964 when he subverted the world of tightly organized atonal composition then in fashion. With the groundbreaking In C—a work built upon steady pulse throughout; short, simple repeated melodic motives; and static harmonies—Riley achieved an elegant and non-nostalgic return to tonality. In demonstrating the hypnotic allure of complex musical patterns made of basic means, he produced the seminal work of Minimalism.
Riley’s facility for complex pattern-making is the product of his virtuosity as a keyboard improviser. He quit formal composition following In C in order to concentrate on improvisation, and in the late 1960s and early ‘70s he became known for weaving dazzlingly intricate skeins of music from improvisations on organ and synthesizer. At this time, Riley also devoted himself to studying North Indian vocal techniques under the legendary Pandit Pran Nath, and a new element entered his music: long-limbed melody. From his work in Indian music, moreover, he became interested in the subtle distinctions of tuning that would be hard to achieve with a traditional classical ensemble.
Riley began notating music again in 1979 when both he and the Kronos Quartet were on the faculty at Mills College in Oakland. By collaborating with Kronos, he discovered that his various musical passions could be integrated, not as pastiche, but as different sides of similar musical impulses that still maintained something of the oral performing traditions of India and jazz. Riley’s first quartets were inspired by his keyboard improvisations, but his knowledge of string quartets became more sophisticated through his work with Kronos, combining rigorous compositional ideas with a more performance-oriented approach.
This three-decade-long relationship has yielded 27 works for string quartet, including a concerto for string quartet, The Sands, which was the Salzburg Festival’s first-ever new music commission; Sun Rings, a multimedia piece for choir, visuals, and space sounds, commissioned by NASA; and The Cusp of Magic, for string quartet and pipa. Kronos’ album Cadenza on the Night Plain, a collection of music by Riley, was selected by both Time and Newsweek as one of the 10 Best Classical Albums of the Year in 1988. The epic five-quartet cycle, Salome Dances for Peace, was selected as the #1 Classical Album of the Year by USA Today and was nominated for a Grammy in 1989.
About This Assortment of Atoms – One Time Only!, Terry Riley writes:
“This Assortment of Atoms – One Time Only! is the first work that I set out to compose since relocating to Japan in February 2019. It is in 3 movements: ‘Lunch in Chinatown,’ ‘A Gentle Rain,’ and ‘This Assortment of Atoms – One Time Only!’ All three movements have spoken text, especially ‘Lunch in Chinatown’ which attempts in a few words to capture a brief conversation between me and David Harrington in one of our many enjoyable meetings in San Francisco’s Chinatown. ‘A Gentle Rain’ was inspired by the interminable spring rains while living amidst central Japan’s rice fields. ‘This Assortment of Atoms...’ consists of a series of repeating phrases that give the performers the choice to shape the flow of the performance.”
Bryce Dessner (b. 1976)
Le Bois (2019)
Bryce Dessner is a vital and rare force in new music. He has won Grammy Awards both as a classical composer and with the band The National, of which he is founding member, guitarist, arranger, and co-principal song-writer. He is also an increasingly high-profile presence in the world of film score composition. The breadth and level of Dessner’s creative output is remarkable.
Dessner’s rapidly expanding body of works is commissioned by the world’s leading ensembles, from Orchestre de Paris and London Philharmonic Orchestra to the New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, and Carnegie Hall.
Few artists are able to bridge diverse creative worlds with such virtuosity, and he regularly collaborates with some of the world’s most respected artists. These include Philip Glass, Alejandro González Iñarritú, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens, Caroline Shaw, Johnny Greenwood, Bon Iver, Justin Peck, Ragnar Kjartansson, Kelley O’Connor, Nico Muhly, and Steve Reich, who named Dessner “a major voice of his generation.” His orchestrations can be heard on the new albums by Paul Simon and Bon Iver, among others.
In 2018 Bryce Dessner was named one of a collective of eight "extraordinary artists, thinkers and doers" to help steer the artistic leadership of Esa-Pekka Salonen when he takes over as San Francisco Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director from September 2020.
Dessner was Grammy and Golden Globe nominated for the soundtrack of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning The Revenant co-written with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto. Further film score credits include The Kitchen for Warner Bros. (2019) as well as The Two Popes starring Anthony Hopkins by Oscar-nominated director Fernando Meirelles (2019).
Major classical works include Concerto for Two Pianos (2018) written for Katia and Marielle Labèque and premiered by London Philharmonic Orchestra and recorded for release on Dessner’s album El Chan on Deutsche Grammophon in 2019; Voy a Dormir (2018) written for mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor and St. Luke’s Orchestra; Skrik Trio (2017), commissioned by Steve Reich and Carnegie Hall; No Tomorrow (a ballet by Ragnar Kjartansson, Margrét Bjarnadóttir and Bryce Dessner, 2017 and winner of Iceland’s Griman Award); and Wires (2016), commissioned for Ensemble Intercontemporain and Matthias Pintscher.
Dessner’s other albums include St. Carolyn by the Sea on Deutsche Grammophon (2014); Music for Wood and Strings (2015); and Aheym, commissioned by Kronos Quartet (2009). Further releases in 2019 include When We Are Inhuman, a collaborative album between Dessner, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, and Eighth Blackbird; and an album of Dessner’s string compositions performed by Ensemble Resonanz.
Dessner is very active as a curator and is regularly called upon to program festivals and events around the world. He has crafted weekend residencies in his name at Barbican London, Philharmonie de Paris and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. He co-founded and curates the festivals: MusicNOW in Cincinnati; HAVEN in Copenhagen; Sounds from a Safe Harbour in Cork; and PEOPLE.
Dessner is principal songwriter for The National along with his brother Aaron, in collaboration with singer/lyricist Matthew Berninger. In spring 2019 the band released their latest studio recording, I am Easy to Find, collaborating with film director Mike Mills.
Bryce Dessner lives in Paris.
About the work, Bryce Dessner writes:
“Le Bois for string quartet is based on Pérotin’s Sederunt principes, and was inspired by the Notre Dame Cathedral and the 1,000-year-old wood ceiling that was lost in the devastating fire there in the spring of 2019. Le Bois is a musical reflection on the impermanence of so many things we take for granted, whether it be our relationships, the structures that surround us, or our environment itself, which is rapidly being destroyed by climate change.”
Angélique Kidjo (b. 1960)
YanYanKliYan Senamido (2020)
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976)
As a performer, Angélique Kidjo’s striking voice, stage presence, and fluency in multiple cultures and languages have won respect from her peers and expanded her following across national borders. Kidjo has cross-pollinated the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America.
After exploring the roads of Africa’s diaspora — through Brazil, Cuba and The United States — and offering a refreshing and electrifying take on the Talking Heads album Remain In Light (called “Transformative” by the New York Times, “Visionary” by NPR Music, “Stunning” by Rolling Stone, and “one of the year’s most vibrant albums” by the Washington Post), the French-Beninese singer is now reflecting on an icon of the Americas, celebrated salsa singer Celia Cruz. Kidjo’s album Celia (Verve/Universal Music France) divests itself of the glamour to investigate the African roots of the Cuban-born woman who became the “Queen” of salsa.
Kidjo’s star-studded album DJIN DJIN won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Album in 2008, and her album OYO was nominated for the same award in 2011. In January 2014 Kidjo’s first book, a memoir titled Spirit Rising: My Life, My Music (Harper Collins) and her twelfth album, EVE (Savoy/429 Records), were released to critical acclaim. EVE later went on to win the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album in 2015, and her historic, orchestral album Sings with the Orchestre Philharmonique Du Luxembourg (Savoy/429 Records) won a Grammy for Best World Music Album in 2016. Kidjo has gone on to perform this genre-bending work with several international orchestras and symphonies including the Bruckner Orchestra, The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Philharmonie de Paris. Her collaboration with Philip Glass, IFÉ: Three Yorùbá Songs, made its US debut to a sold-out concert with the San Francisco Symphony in June 2015. In 2019, Kidjo helped Philip Glass premiere his latest work, Symphony #12 “Lodger,” a symphonic re-imagining of the David Bowie album of the same name, at a sold-out performance at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition to performing this new orchestral concert, Kidjo continues to tour globally performing the high-energy concert she’s become famous for with her four-piece band.
Kidjo also travels the world advocating on behalf of children in her capacity as a UNICEF and OXFAM goodwill Ambassador. At the G7 Summit in 2019, President Macron of France named Kidjo as the spokesperson for the AFAWA initiative (Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa) to help close the financing gap for women entrepreneurs in Africa. She has also created her own charitable foundation, Batonga, dedicated to support the education of young girls in Africa.
About YanYanKliYan Senamido, Angélique Kidjo writes:
“In 2014, I recorded an album called EVE, a tribute to my late mother and to the women of Africa. A few groups of Beninese women sung the choruses of my songs. I recorded a song with just vocals and traditional percussion. The rhythm was really complex and typical from Benin. Once the song was finished, I felt something was missing and I had the idea to invite the Kronos Quartet who had great experiences working with African artists. The result, a piece called Ebile, was a revelation. They had captured the complexity of the Beninese polyrhythms and brought a great energy to the track.
“When the Quartet reached out to me for their Fifty for the Future initiative, I could not say no and decided to work on a piece inspired by traditional melodies from Benin. In Beninese traditional music, there is not a clear separation between melody and rhythm. Each percussion is playing a melodic pattern and each vocal melody had a very complex rhythm. I knew the Quartet would be able to play all these grooves and tight rhythms like a group of Africa percussion players would do. I hope YanYanKliYan Senamido will become, for future students, a brief introduction of the beautiful music of my country.”
Rafiq Bhatia (b. 1987)
Glimmers (2020) (World Premiere)
I. Mylar Tremors
II. Signal Lamps
III. Resonant Light
Rafiq Bhatia is a composer, producer, and guitarist who moves fluidly between jazz and rock groups, Indian and American musical influences, and acoustic and electronic sounds. Early influences such as Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, and Madlib—as well as mentors and collaborators including Vijay Iyer and Billy Hart—have prompted him to see music as a way to actively shape and represent his own identity. The first-generation American son of Muslim immigrant parents who trace their ancestry to India by way of East Africa, Bhatia often looks to his family’s labyrinthine history for inspiration, an influence felt on his second album, Breaking English, released on ANTI- Records in 2018. His latest release, Standards Vol. 1, was released in January 2022. Bhatia is also a member of the band Son Lux.
About Glimmers, Rafiq Bhatia writes:
“I wrote and recorded the movements of Glimmers entirely on the guitar, tuning the strings to match the harmonic spectrum of the quartet and using techniques inspired by the kinds of sounds I've only heard string players make. One of the things I've found most rewarding over the years has been the process of reaching for sounds that lie beyond the traditional confines of my instrument. In attempting to rigorously approximate the characteristics of other sound sources, I have discovered new capabilities and possibilities offered by the guitar that may not have been apparent otherwise. In addition to being creatively rewarding, though, I've found this to be an increasingly necessary practice to cultivate—as musical communities grow more diverse and interconnected, I suspect that musicians will be increasingly called upon to utilize their ears and stretch their sonic palettes to meet the needs of different situations. In many of the contexts in which I have worked, the recording has replaced the score, and I would imagine that will only become more commonplace over time.
“I hope that in offering Glimmers in the form of a guitar-based recording—in which ensembles performing the work are invited to transcribe my original versions in creating their own iteration of the piece—I might provide an opportunity for string players of the future to exercise these muscles. In attempting to locate and embody these sounds on their own instruments, I hope they might discover insights less readily available on the page, or even gain the confidence to draw inspiration from less likely sources. There are magical things that can come from filtering ideas back and forth through different interfaces. Take, for example, the legions of drummers today who are seeking to approximate hip-hop producer J Dilla's combination of quantization and human feel, which in turn was inspired by trying to imbue the output of a drum machine with the organic flexion of a jazz or soul drummer.
“When I first met Kronos founder and violinist David Harrington, we discussed the late George Crumb’s Black Angels, a work that had expanded both of our perspectives on what a string quartet could be(come). It was a late-night broadcast of the New York String Quartet’s recording of Black Angels that originally inspired Harrington to form the Kronos Quartet. In turn, Kronos’ recording of the piece has been a touchstone for me over the years, and many of the techniques I reached for on the guitar in shaping Glimmers are inspired by the amplified string textures and singing glass resonances contained within their version. Since his passing, Crumb and the impact of his articulation of a limitless imagination have been on my mind, and I know I will continue to be propelled forward by what he left behind.
“Having originally begun my life in music as a violinist, I cannot adequately express how surreal it feels to have been commissioned by one of the greatest string quartets in the history of American music. As someone who never quite found myself at home within the Euro-American classical tradition, it is even more meaningful to have been asked to contribute to their boundary-broadening Fifty for the Future initiative, building a legacy for the next generation of string quartets. Working with the Kronos Quartet has been one of the honors of my lifetime. I hope you enjoy bearing witness to the first fruits of what we have sown together.”
Philip Glass (b. 1937)
Quartet Satz (2017)
Through his operas, his symphonies, his compositions for his own ensemble, and his wide-ranging collaborations with artists ranging from Twyla Tharp to Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen to David Bowie, Philip Glass has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times.
The operas – “Einstein on the Beach,” “Satyagraha,” “Akhnaten,” and “The Voyage,” among many others – play throughout the world’s leading houses, and rarely to an empty seat. Glass has written music for experimental theater and for Academy Award-winning motion pictures such as “The Hours” and Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun,” while “Koyaanisqatsi,” his initial filmic landscape with Godfrey Reggio and the Philip Glass Ensemble, may be the most radical and influential mating of sound and vision since “Fantasia.” His associations, personal and professional, with leading rock, pop and world music artists date back to the 1960s, including the beginning of his collaborative relationship with artist Robert Wilson. Indeed, Glass is the first composer to win a wide, multi-generational audience in the opera house, the concert hall, the dance world, in film and in popular music – simultaneously.
He was born in 1937 and grew up in Baltimore. He studied at the University of Chicago, the Juilliard School and in Aspen with Darius Milhaud. Finding himself dissatisfied with much of what then passed for modern music, he moved to Europe, where he studied with the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger (who also taught Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and Quincy Jones) and worked closely with the sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar. He returned to New York in 1967 and formed the Philip Glass Ensemble – seven musicians playing keyboards and a variety of woodwinds, amplified and fed through a mixer.
The new musical style that Glass was evolving was eventually dubbed “minimalism.” Glass himself never liked the term and preferred to speak of himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures.” Much of his early work was based on the extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that wove in and out of an aural tapestry. Or, to put it another way, it immersed a listener in a sort of sonic weather that twists, turns, surrounds, develops.
There has been nothing “minimalist” about his output. In the past 25 years, Glass has composed more than 25 operas, large and small; twelve symphonies; three piano concertos and concertos for violin, piano, timpani, and saxophone quartet and orchestra; soundtracks to films ranging from new scores for the stylized classics of Jean Cocteau to Errol Morris’s documentary about former defense secretary Robert McNamara; string quartets; a growing body of work for solo piano and organ. He has collaborated with Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Yo-Yo Ma, and Doris Lessing, among many others. He presents lectures, workshops, and solo keyboard performances around the world, and continues to appear regularly with the Philip Glass Ensemble.
About Quartet Satz, Andrew Gilbert writes:
Serving as both muse and vehicle for Philip Glass’ music, Kronos Quartet has played an essential role in the composer’s creative realm for decades. But “Quartet Satz,” Glass’ contribution to Kronos’ Fifty for the Future initiative, isn’t just a dazzling addition to a body of work that constitute one of new music’s definitive relationships. Solemn, measured and inexorable as the tides, the sweeping piece distills the rhythmic and emotional currents that have woven Glass’ music into our consciousness.
“Each movement feels like an entire universe,” says Kronos’ David Harrington. “That’s what I thought before we even played it. Philip was giving us something that encapsulates his entire vision in one work. I think it’s one of his most amazing pieces. Philip has this connection to the early root system of the string quartet, a connection you hear it in its gorgeous sonorities.”
At this point it’s impossible to know whether we experience Glass’ work as cinematic because of the countless times film scores have employed his music or whether there’s something inherent in his palette of pulse and texture and melodic imagination that evokes the moving image. No collaboration better embodies the depth of Glass’ relationship with Kronos than the score for Todd Browning’s Dracula, which they performed together live numerous times at screenings of the classic 1931 film and documented on a 1999 Nonesuch album.
Glass has written several other major pieces specifically for Kronos, starting with 1991’s “String Quartet No. 5” (featured on the 1995 Nonesuch album Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass). All of those experiences came to play in writing “Satz Quartet,” as Glass had the ensemble in mind as he was composing. “I automatically visualize them playing the music and know how they sound,” he says. “I’m thinking, ‘This will be a good part for Hank. He will like this part.’ I think it’s likely I’ll never have this kind of a relationship with another quartet.”
Glass’ history with Kronos isn’t the piece’s only subtext. Some of the ideas in “Satz Quartet” first appeared in a piece he wrote for Robert Hurwitz marking the end of his spectacularly productive tenure running Nonesuch. But the title also unambiguously references Schubert’s famously incomplete “Quartettsatz,” a move that Glass acknowledges with a chuckle as “a form of self-aggrandizement. Schubert was my father’s favorite composer. I grew up with him, and we actually share a birthday, January 31st. I know the Schubert landscape like the back of my hand.”
Under the auspices of Kronos’ Fifty for the Future, Glass’ hand now gracefully welcomes new generations of string players. Mastering “Quartet Satz” means grappling with the string quartet as an organic organism, and the piece’s architectural strength means that Kronos can usher young musicians inside the piece. At a recent string festival at Austria’s Esterházy Palace “we had an amazing experience with two very fine quartets we were mentoring, Canada’s Rolston String Quartet and South Korea’s Esmé Quartet,” Harrington says. “The 12 of us played ‘Satz’ as an encore and it sounded glorious.”
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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