KRONOS QUARTET David Harrington, violin John Sherba, violin Hank Dutt, viola Sunny Yang, cello Brian H. Scott, Lighting Designer Brian Mohr, Associate Sound Designer
Zankel Hall Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute New York, New York April 15, 2016 Kronos: Creating a New Repertoire Program to include: Terry Riley / Selections from Salome Dances for Peace III. The Gift Echoes of Primordial Time Mongolian Winds IV. The Ecstasy Processional Seduction of the Bear Father The Gathering At the Summit Recessional V. Good Medicine Good Medicine Dance Fodé Lassana Diabaté (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Selections from Sunjata’s Time 1. Sumaworo 2. Sogolon 3. Nana Triban 4. Bala Faseke Composed for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire Garth Knox / Satellites I. Geostationary II. Spectral Sunrise
III. Dimensions Composed for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire Wu Man (arr. Danny Clay) / Selections from Four Chinese Paintings I. Gobi Desert at Sunset 大漠夕阳 II. Turpan Dance 吐鲁番之舞 III. Ancient Echo 远古回响 Composed for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire All works written for Kronos
The Argus Quartet Jason Issokson, violin Clara Kim, violin Diana Wade, viola Joann Whang, cello
Friction Quartet Kevin Rogers, violin Otis Harriel, violin Taija Warbelow, viola Doug Machiz, cello
Ligeti Quartet Mandhira de Saram, violin Patrick Dawkins, violin Richard Jones, viola Val Welbanks, cello PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Terry Riley (b. 1935) Salome Dances for Peace (1985–86) “The idea for Salome Dances for Peace came out of improvisation theme from The Harp of New Albion. I realized this was potentially a whole new piece. Around that time, David Harrington called me and asked me to write another string quartet. “I thought that it should be a ballet about Salome using her alluring powers to actually create peace in the world. So Salome in this case becomes like a goddess who – drawn out of antiquity,
having done evil kinds of deeds – reincarnates and is trained as a sorceress, as a shaman. And through her dancing, she is able to become both a warrior and an influence on the world leaders’ actions. “What I do is to make many, many minute sketches of ideas and file them away, and at some point as I’m writing, one of those ideas will be the right one for the time. I trust the fact that anything that occurs to me is related to whatever occurred to me before. “All of the kinds of music that appear in my string quartets are the kinds of music that I personally love, and I don’t necessarily keep them in separate cabinets. One of the challenges, in fact, is to bring things you love together to live harmoniously. It also creates an understanding of how the notes work. These styles all have their particular flavors and expressions but they can be united. Notes all work under certain universal laws, they observe laws just like everything else in the universe does. “To me it’s all a unified field. It’s the general search we’re going through now in physics, trying to find a unified theory. I think for a musician that is also relevant and works towards evolving new, deeper and richer musical traditions. “I’m always trying to find ways that I can, besides doing music, contribute to world peace, or maybe neighborhood peace or home peace. I told David that when we first started that I thought we ought to create a piece that can be played at the United Nations on special holidays. It would not be just a concert piece but a piece that could be played as a rite.” —TERRY RILEY, from a conversation with Mark Swed Salome Dances for Peace is music of passing landscapes. It is a tapestry of seemingly unrelated musics; musics reflecting its composer’s passions for jazz, blues, North Indian raga, Middle Eastern scales, Minimalist pattern and traditional Western art music; styles never before found together within the framework of a single string quartet. Unlike any quartet ever written, Salome Dances for Peace, is long, triple the length of Beethoven’s longest quartet. And it is a narrative epic, grander in scope than the medium – traditionally favored for its intimacy – has previously known. Terry Riley, who studied composition at the University of California, Berkeley, first came to prominence in 1964 when he found a way to subvert the world of tightly organized atonal composition then in academic 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 art music. He demonstrated the hypnotic allure of making complex musical patterns out of basic means. And in so doing, he produced the seminal work of the now popular Minimal school. Born in 1935 in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California, where he still lives and composes amidst surroundings of striking natural beauty and spectacular night skies, Riley developed pattern music in response to his love for such natural design. But his facility for complex pattern making also proved the product of his virtuosity as a keyboard improviser. Riley
quit formal composition altogether following In C in order to concentrate on improvisation, and in the late 1960s and early ’70s, he built a reputation for weaving dazzlingly intricate skeins of music during all-night improvisations on organ and synthesizer. Also in the early ’70s, Riley began to devote himself to the study of North Indian vocal techniques under the guidance of the legendary Pandit Pran Nath, and a new element gradually entered his music: long-limbed melody. From his work in Indian music, moreover, he also developed an interest in the subtle distinctions of tuning that would be hard to achieve with a traditional classical ensemble. Riley decided to notate music again in 1979 when both he and the Kronos Quartet were on the faculty at Mills College in Oakland. By collaborating extensively with Kronos, with whom he soon developed a close relationship, Riley began to discover the degree to which 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 began to consider the string quartet in general, and the Kronos Quartet in particular, as the ideal medium for his evolving musical language. And that meant approaching the string quartet in an entirely new way. Riley’s first quartets were inspired by his keyboard improvisations, but his knowledge of string quartets became more sophisticated through his work with Kronos, and as Kronos became more comfortable with the breadth of Riley’s musical world, he was able to combine rigorous compositional ideas with his more performance-oriented approach to music making. But Riley’s quartets were also examples of his devotion to music as a spiritual endeavor. A gentle and wise man, Riley has an oracular presence. Storytelling is among his gifts, and like his music, Riley’s stories are cross-cultural. Salome Dances for Peace is one of those stories told in a mythical setting by a string quartet. Riley began it in 1985 as a ballet, developing scenario and music together. As the score evolved during two years of composition, the music outgrew its need for explicit staging. Describing mankind’s universal quest for inner knowledge, Riley included aspects from ancient myth, from Biblical legend and from Native American culture to portray a hero’s attainment of special powers in order to fight the forces of evil and discover truth. In Riley’s narrative, the heroine is Salome, the legendary seductress in King Herod’s court who called for the head of John the Baptist to be brought to her on a plate in return for removing her seven veils during a lewd dance. Now, 2000 years after Salome’s famous dance, peace has been stolen from the earth by dark forces, and Salome is chosen to win it back. In the first two parts of Salome Dances for Peace [which will not be performed tonight], Salome is summoned to the Great Spirit, who sees in her the embodiment of the feminine force. She is guided by sages in a Peace Dance; she receives the gift of innocence in Fanfare in the Minimal Kingdom; she develops the discipline to thwart Wild Talker, who represents sexual temptation; and she is initiated as a warrior by the shaman Half Wolf during More Ceremonial Races. In order to fulfill her mission, Salome and Half Wolf descend into the gloomy underworld, as Jonah had entered the belly of the whale or Orpheus was ferried into Hades. A battle is fought, peace is recaptured, and the entire underworld, with all its fantastic beings, levitated into the Realm of Light.
Once more a dancer, Salome entertains around the world: in the third part, “The Gift,” we find her in Tibet and, as the music becomes more folk-like, Mongolia. Once again she is charged with a mission: to attract the attention of the world’s two most powerful leaders. Seducing both the Bear Father and the Great White father, which leads to the latter’s emotional breakdown and finally to epiphany in “The Ecstasy,” Salome succeeds in winning world peace. The score ends with the “Good Medicine Dance,” a return to old wisdom and teachings, with the counsel to become guileless, and to pursue self-knowledge. The relationship between the story and the quartet is a complex one. The music does not consistently tell the story as program music. Certain motives are representative, but they are developed for musical, not programmatic, reasons. Characters can also be defined by more general musical means. A variety of sinuous melodic shapes represents Salome, and slinky glissandi give Wild Talker a sort of Sportin’ Life sleaziness (especially in his appearance in the Seduction of the Bear Father section of “The Ecstasy”). There are many striking moments of musical description, such as the eerie, howling harmonics that seem to pierce the ear, aptly conveying the otherworldly Mongolian winds. Static chords at the beginning of Salome’s descent to the Underworld conjure up a surreal landscape, but the ensuing combat and victory are portrayed in a more abstract way in order to convey a sense a great doings rather than realistic actions or scenes. How much one wants to hear Salome Dances for Peace as a specific story is ultimately a personal decision for the listener. Like a late Beethoven quartet, Salome Dances for Peace is a spiritual journey. —Mark Swed Salome Dances for Peace was commissioned for Kronos by IRCAM and Betty Freeman. Kronos’ recording is available on Nonesuch Records.
Fodé Lassana Diabaté (b. 1971) Sunjata’s Time (2015) Arranged by Jacob Garchik Lassana Diabaté is a virtuoso balafon (22-key xylophone) player who comes originally from Guinea. The balafon dates back at least to the 13th century with the founding of the Mali empire. Lassana began playing balafon at the age of five at home in Conakry with his father, Djelisory Diabaté, a master balafon player, from Kindia, some 150 kms inland. Lassana later apprenticed himself to some of the celebrated balafon masters such as the late, great El Hadj Djeli Sory Kouyate, also from Kindia, as well as the late Alkali Camara. To this day, Lassana cherishes the rare recordings of his mentors, whose unique styles continue to be an important inspiration to him.
Lassana settled in Mali in the late 1980s after being invited to join the band of Ami Koita, one of Mali’s most popular divas of the time, and has since recorded with many of Mali’s top artists such as Toumani Diabaté, Salif Keita, Babani Koné, Tiken Jah Fakoly, and Bassekou Kouyaté; he was also a member of the Grammy-nominated Mali-Cuba collaboration, Afrocubism. Sunjata’s Time, in five movements, is dedicated to Sunjata Keita, the warrior prince who founded the great Mali Empire in 1235, which at its height stretched across the West African savannah to the Atlantic shores. Sunjata’s legacy continues to be felt in many ways. During his time as emperor he established many of the cultural norms that remain in practice today – including the close relationship between patron and musician that is the hallmark of so much music in Mali. The word “time” is meant to denote both “rhythm,” an important element in balafon performance, and “epoch,” since the composition sets out to evoke the kinds of musical sounds that might have been heard in Sunjata’s time, drawing on older styles of balafon playing which Lassana Diabaté has learned while studying with elder masters of the instrument in Guinea. Each of the first four movements depicts a character who played a central role in Sunjata’s life, and each is fronted by one of the four instruments of the quartet. Three of these movements will be performed tonight. 1. Sumaworo. Sumaworo Kante was the name of the sorcerer blacksmith king, Sunjata's opponent, who usurped the throne of Mande, a small kingdom on the border of present-day Guinea and Mali, to which Sunjata was the rightful heir. Sumaworo was a fearsome and powerful character who wore human skulls as a necklace. The balafon originally belonged to him and its sound was believed to have esoteric powers. (This movement is dedicated to the viola.) 2. Sogolon. Sogolon Koné was Sunjata's mother, a wise buffalo woman who came from the land of Do, by the Niger river in the central valley of Mali, where the music is very old and pentatonic and sounds like the roots of the blues. It was predicted that Sogolon would give birth to a great ruler, and so two hunters brought her to Mande, where she married the king. But her co-wives were jealous and mocked her son. When Sunjata’s father died, Sunjata’s half-brother took the throne, and Sunjata went into exile with his mother (dedicated to the second violin). 3. Nana Triban. Nana Triban was Sunjata's beautiful sister. When Sunjata went into exile, the sorcerer blacksmith wrested the throne from Sunjata’s half-brother. So the people of Mande went to find Sunjata, to beg him to return and help overthrow Sumaworo. Sunjata gathered an army from all the neighbouring kingdoms. But it seemed that the Sumaworo was invincible, drawing on his powers of sorcery to evade defeat. Finally, Nana Triban intervened. She used her skills of seduction to trick Sumaworo into revealing the secret of his vulnerability, escaping before the act was consummated. Armed with this knowledge, Sunjata was victorious, restoring peace to the land, and building West Africa’s most powerful empire (dedicated to the cello).
4. Bala Faseké. Bala Faseké Kouyaté was Sunjata's jeli (griot, or hereditary musician), and his instrument was the balafon, with its enchanting sound of rosewood keys and buzzing resonators. Bala Faseké was much more than just a musician: he was an adviser, educator, a go-between, and a loyal friend to Sunjata. And, of course, he was an astonishing virtuoso. The Mali empire would never have been formed without the music of Bala Faseké, and the history of West Africa would have been very different. (This movement is dedicated to the first violin.) Notes about Sunjata’s Time by Lucy Durán Fodé Lassana Diabaté’s Sunjata’s Time was commissioned as part of the Kronos Performing Arts Association’s Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, which is made possible by a group of adventurous partners, including Carnegie Hall and many others. Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association has launched an exciting new commissioning initiative—Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. Beginning in the 2015/16 season, Fifty for the Future will commission 50 new works—10 per year for five years— devoted to contemporary approaches to the quartet and designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals. The works will be created by an eclectic group of composers—25 men and 25 women. Kronos will premiere each piece and create companion digital materials, including scores, recordings, and performance notes, which will be distributed online for free. Kronos’ Fifty for the Future will present string quartet music as a living art form. Kronos, Carnegie Hall, and an adventurous list of project partners will join forces to support this exciting new commissioning, performance, education, and legacy project of unprecedented scope and potential impact.
Garth Knox (b. 1956) Satellites (2015) Garth Knox is one of today’s leading performers of contemporary music, and his formative experience as a member of Pierre Boulez’s Ensemble InterContemporain and then as violist of the Arditti Quartet has given him a very comprehensive grasp of new music. Stimulated by the practical experience of working on a personal level with composers such as Boulez, Ligeti, Berio, Xenakis and many others he channels and expands this energy when writing his own music. Knox’s solo and ensemble pieces have been played all over Europe, USA and Japan. He has received commissions from the Festival d’Automne in Paris, Proquartet (France), Concorde Ensemble (Ireland), Lucillin Ensemble (Luxembourg), Tokyo International Viola Competition (Japan), Camarata Variabile (Switzerland), Radio France and the Kronos Quartet (USA). Viola Spaces, the first phase of a multi-faceted ongoing series of concert studies for strings published in 2010 by Schott, combines ground-breaking innovation in string technique with joyous pleasure in the act of music making and the pieces have been adopted and performed by young string players all over the world.
About Satellites, Knox writes: “In space, the seemingly simple idea of standing still becomes a complex notion, demanding great precision and enormous effort, and is achievable only by travelling at great speed. In ‘Geostationary’, I wanted to capture this paradox in music, with always at least one instrument (usually the viola) in perpetual mechanical motion while the violins try to float their static melody – which never succeeds in leaving the starting note behind and falls back each time into the vacuum. At regular intervals their stationary orbit sweeps our four astronauts through the same meteor shower where they are bombarded by high energy micro-particles scattering in every direction. “‘Spectral Sunrise’ was inspired by hearing an astronaut talking on the radio of seeing several sunrises a day when he was in space, and the undiminishing wonder he felt each time at the intensity of the light and the absolute darkness which followed. I wanted to combine this idea with a type of slow movement commonly used by baroque composers, which is sometimes just a few simple chords over which the players improvise. In this piece we hear three sunrises in three minutes, each one followed by darkness illuminated only by a short improvisation by one of the players. “‘Dimensions’ deals with the many possible dimensions which surround us, represented by the physical movements of the bow. In the first dimension, only vertical movement is possible, then only horizontal movement, then only circular, then the two sides of the bow (the stick and the hair) express a binary choice. The fun really starts when we begin to mix the dimensions, slipping from one to another, and the piece builds to a climax of spectacular bow fireworks!” Garth Knox’s Satellites was commissioned as part of the Kronos Performing Arts Association’s Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, which is made possible by a group of adventurous partners, including Carnegie Hall and many others. Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association has launched an exciting new commissioning initiative—Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. Beginning in the 2015/16 season, Fifty for the Future will commission 50 new works—10 per year for five years— devoted to contemporary approaches to the quartet and designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals. The works will be created by an eclectic group of composers—25 men and 25 women. Kronos will premiere each piece and create companion digital materials, including scores, recordings, and performance notes, which will be distributed online for free. Kronos’ Fifty for the Future will present string quartet music as a living art form. Kronos, Carnegie Hall, and an adventurous list of project partners will join forces to support this exciting new commissioning, performance, education, and legacy project of unprecedented scope and potential impact.
Wu Man (b. 1963) Four Chinese Paintings (2015) Arranged by Danny Clay
Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and leading ambassador of Chinese music, Grammy Award–nominated musician Wu Man has carved out a career as a soloist, educator, and composer giving her lute-like instrument—which has a history of over 2,000 years in China—a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. Having been brought up in the Pudong School of pipa playing, one of the most prestigious classical styles of Imperial China, Wu Man is now recognized as an outstanding exponent of the traditional repertoire as well as a leading interpreter of contemporary pipa music by today’s most prominent composers. Wu Man’s efforts were recognized when she was named Musical America’s 2013 Instrumentalist of the Year, the first time this prestigious award has been bestowed on a player of a non-Western instrument. Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied with Lin Shicheng, Kuang Yuzhong, Chen Zemin, and Liu Dehai at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master's degree in pipa. Accepted into the conservatory at age 13, Wu Man’s audition was covered by national newspapers and she was hailed as a child prodigy, becoming a nationally recognized role model for young pipa players. In 1985 she made her first visit to the United States as a member of the China Youth Arts Troupe. Wu Man moved to the U.S. in 1990 and currently resides with her husband and son in California. About Four Chinese Paintings, Wu Man writes: “After two decades of collaboration with Kronos Quartet, I am finally beginning to understand Western string instruments. With the group’s encouragement and support, I was able to write this—my first composition for string quartet. “Four Chinese Paintings is a suite consisting of four short pieces. In traditional Chinese music, there is often a poetic title that serves as a prompt foundation for musical content and style. I decided to continue this traditional form in this piece by presenting four traditional Chinese paintings. “The inspiration for these paintings came from several styles of Chinese folk music, including Uyghur music (western China, border of Central Asia) and tea-house music from my hometown of Hangzhou. My wish is for the audience to experience—to ‘see’—the Chinese landscape, and to hear each of the four stories in their local dialects. More importantly, listeners will experience Chinese culture. “Writing a piece for string quartet was a great challenge for me. Though I have written and improvised countelss works for the pipa, composing for Western string instruments was a brand new experience. My creative process began with improvising on the pipa, building layer upon layer until I had all four instrumental parts composed. I then worked with Danny Clay to arrange the piece. “I’d like to thank Kronos for their trust and encouragement, for letting me be a part of the Fifty for the Future Project, and for giving me this opportunity to share my musical culture with young string quartets around the world!”
Wu Man’s Four Chinese Paintings was commissioned as part of the Kronos Performing Arts Association’s Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, which is made possible by a group of adventurous partners, including Carnegie Hall and many others. Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association has launched an exciting new commissioning initiative—Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. Beginning in the 2015/16 season, Fifty for the Future will commission 50 new works—10 per year for five years— devoted to contemporary approaches to the quartet and designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals. The works will be created by an eclectic group of composers—25 men and 25 women. Kronos will premiere each piece and create companion digital materials, including scores, recordings, and performance notes, which will be distributed online for free. Kronos’ Fifty for the Future will present string quartet music as a living art form. Kronos, Carnegie Hall, and an adventurous list of project partners will join forces to support this exciting new commissioning, performance, education, and legacy project of unprecedented scope and potential impact.
Kronos Quartet For more than 40 years, the Kronos Quartet—David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Sunny Yang (cello)—has pursued a singular artistic vision, combining a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually re-imagining the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our time, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 50 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, collaborating with many of the world's most intriguing and accomplished composers and performers, and commissioning more than 850 works and arrangements for string quartet. In 2011, Kronos became the only recipients of both the Polar Music Prize and the Avery Fisher Prize, two of the most prestigious awards given to musicians. The group’s numerous awards also include a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance (2004) and “Musicians of the Year” (2003) from Musical America. Kronos’ adventurous approach dates back to the ensemble’s origins. In 1973, David Harrington was inspired to form Kronos after hearing George Crumb's Black Angels, a highly unorthodox, Vietnam War–inspired work featuring bowed water glasses, spoken word passages, and electronic effects. Kronos then began building a compellingly diverse repertoire for string quartet, performing and recording works by 20th-century masters (Bartók, Webern, Schnittke), contemporary composers (Sophia Gubaidulina, Bryce Dessner, Aleksandra Vrebalov), jazz legends (Ornette Coleman, Maria Schneider, Thelonious Monk), rock artists (guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, Brazilian electronica artist Amon Tobin, and Icelandic indie-rock group Sigur Rós), and artists who truly defy genre (performance artist Laurie Anderson, composer/sound sculptor/inventor Trimpin, and singer-songwriter/poet Patti Smith). Integral to Kronos’ work is a series of long-running, in-depth collaborations with many of the world’s foremost composers. One of the quartet’s most frequent composer-collaborators is “Father of Minimalism” Terry Riley, whose work with Kronos includes Salome Dances for Peace (1985–86); Sun Rings (2002), a multimedia, NASA-commissioned ode to the earth and its
people, featuring celestial sounds and images from space; and The Serquent Risadome, premiered during Kronos’ 40th Anniversary Celebration at Carnegie Hall in 2014. Kronos commissioned and recorded the three string quartets of Polish composer Henryk Górecki, with whom the group worked for more than 25 years. The quartet has also collaborated extensively with composers such as Philip Glass, recording a CD of his string quartets in 1995 and premiering String Quartet No. 6 in 2013, among other projects; Azerbaijan’s Franghiz AliZadeh, whose works are featured on the full-length 2005 release Mugam Sayagi; Steve Reich, from Kronos’ performance of the Grammy-winning composition Different Trains (1989) to the September 11–themed WTC 9/11 (2011); and many more. In addition to composers, Kronos counts numerous performers from around the world among its collaborators, including the Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man; Azeri master vocalist Alim Qasimov; legendary Bollywood “playback singer” Asha Bhosle, featured on Kronos’ 2005 Grammy-nominated CD You’ve Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman’s Bollywood; Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq; indie rock band The National; Mexican rockers Café Tacvba; sound artist and instrument builder Walter Kitundu; and the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks. Kronos has performed live with the likes of Paul McCartney, Allen Ginsberg, Jarvis Cocker, Zakir Hussain, Modern Jazz Quartet, Noam Chomsky, Rokia Traoré, Tom Waits, Rhiannon Giddens, Howard Zinn, Betty Carter, and David Bowie, and has appeared on recordings by artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Dan Zanes, Glenn Kotche, Dave Matthews, Nelly Furtado, Joan Armatrading, and Don Walser. In dance, the famed choreographers Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Eiko & Koma, and Paul Lightfoot and Sol León (Nederlands Dans Theater) have created pieces with Kronos’ music. Kronos’ work has also featured prominently in a number of films, including two recent Academy Award–nominated documentaries: the AIDS-themed How to Survive a Plague (2012) and Dirty Wars (2013), an exposé of covert warfare for which Kronos’ David Harrington served as Music Supervisor. Kronos also performed scores by Philip Glass for the films Mishima and Dracula (a 1999 restored edition of the 1931 Tod Browning–Bela Lugosi classic) and by Clint Mansell for the Darren Aronofsky films Noah (2014), The Fountain (2006), and Requiem for a Dream (2000). Additional films featuring Kronos’ music include The Great Beauty (2013), Heat (1995), and True Stories (1986). The quartet spends five months of each year on tour, appearing in concert halls, clubs, and festivals around the world including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Big Ears, BAM Next Wave Festival, Chicago’s Harris Theater, Disney Hall, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Barbican in London, WOMAD, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Shanghai Concert Hall, and Sydney Opera House. Kronos is equally prolific and wide-ranging on recordings. The ensemble’s expansive discography on Nonesuch Records includes collections like Pieces of Africa (1992), a showcase of African-born composers, which simultaneously topped Billboard’s Classical and World Music lists; 1998’s ten-disc anthology, Kronos Quartet: 25 Years; Nuevo (2002), a Grammy- and Latin Grammy–nominated celebration of Mexican culture; and the 2004 Grammy-winner, Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite, featuring renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw. Other more recent releases include Rainbow (Smithsonian Folkways, 2010), in collaboration with musicians from Afghanistan and Azerbaijan; and Aheym: Kronos Quartet Plays Music by Bryce Dessner (Anti-, 2013). In celebration of the quartet’s 40th anniversary season in 2014, Nonesuch
released both Kronos Explorer Series, a five-CD retrospective boxed set, and the single-disc A Thousand Thoughts, featuring mostly unreleased recordings from throughout Kronos’ career. 2015 brought the release of Tundra Songs by Derek Charke as well as a boxed set of Terry Riley’s music written for and performed by Kronos in celebration of the composer’s 80th birthday. Music publishers Boosey & Hawkes and Kronos have released two editions of Kronos Collection sheet music: Volume 1 (2006), featuring three Kronos-commissioned works; and Volume 2 (2014), featuring six Kronos-commissioned arrangements by composer Osvaldo Golijov. In addition to its role as a performing and recording ensemble, the quartet is committed to mentoring emerging performers and composers and has led workshops, master classes, and other education programs via the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the California State Summer School for the Arts, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, and other institutions in the U.S. and overseas. Kronos has recently undertaken extended educational residencies at UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances, The Clarice at the University of Maryland, and with the Kaufman Music Center’s Face the Music. With a staff of 11 based in San Francisco, the non-profit Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA) manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including the commissioning of new works, concert tours and local performances, education programs, and more. KPAA’s Kronos: Under 30 Project, a unique commissioning and residency program for composers under age 30, has now added five new works to the Kronos repertoire. KRONOS PRESENTS is a new presenting program showcasing Kronos’ commissioned works, artistic projects and far-ranging musical collaborations through an annual festival, education and community activities, and other events in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. In 2015 KPAA launched a new commissioning and education initiative – Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. With Carnegie Hall as a lead partner, KPAA is commissioning 50 new works – 10 per year for five years – devoted to contemporary approaches to the quartet and designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals. The works will be created by an eclectic group of composers – 25 women and 25 men. The quartet will premiere each piece and create companion materials, including scores and parts, recordings, videos, performance notes, and composer interviews, that will be distributed online for free. Kronos’ Fifty for the Future will present quartet music as a living art form, and provide young musicians with both an indispensable library of learning and a blueprint for their own future collaborations with composers. Kronos, Carnegie Hall, and an adventurous list of project partners that includes presenters, academic institutions, foundations and individuals, have joined forces to support this exciting new commissioning, performance, education, and legacy project of unprecedented scope and potential impact. For the Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association: Janet Cowperthwaite, Managing Director Sidney Chen, Artistic Administrator Mason Dille, Development Associate Scott Fraser, Sound Designer Gregory T. Kuhn, Production & Artistic Services Director
Nikolås McConnie-Saad, Office Manager Kären Nagy, Strategic Initiatives Director Hannah Neff, Production Associate Lucinda Toy, Business Operations Manager 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: @kronosquartet #kronos The Kronos Quartet records for Nonesuch Records.