February 5, 2008

“One day I was talking with [Terry] and he said he wanted [his next] piece to be ‘magical.’ My granddaughter Emily was an infant at the time. We had little toys and noisemakers around the house, which we would play as I carried her around. Of all the experiences I’ve had, that is the most magical. ‘Why don’t you just come over, and we’ll play some of Emily’s toys?’ I said.”

-- David Harrington
Artistic Director, Kronos Quartet

This is was the spark that led to The Cusp of Magic by Terry Riley, now available on Nonesuch Records. Commissioned for Kronos on the occasion of our longtime friend and collaborator Terry Riley’s 70th birthday, the piece features Kronos joined by Wu Man on pipa (a Chinese plucked string instrument, similar to a lute), with all musicians also playing a variety of percussion instruments, toys, and noisemakers.

David Harrington adds that “no composer has been as much a part of Kronos as Terry Riley. We first met at Mills College in 1978, and he has written 23 works for us so far." Kronos premiered The Cusp of Magic in 2005, and the piece was performed at Carnegie Hall as part of Kronos’ 2006 Live Mix series. The Cusp of Magic will be performed on February 17 at Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at University of Maryland, College Park.

Listen to excerpts of Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic on our website. Click here to purchase The Cusp of Magic via our website or iTunes.

November 27, 2007

On November 20th Interscope Records released Nine Inch Nails' Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D (Year Zero Remixed), featuring the Kronos Quartet and Enrique Gonzalez Müller's remix of Another Version of the Truth.

Spun off from Year Zero, the #2-charting album issued last spring, Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D includes a diverse array of remixers, from Joy Division and New Order's Stephen Morris to hip-hop poet Saul Williams; from avant-garde leader Bill Laswell, electronica's Olof Dreijer from The Knife, Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino and post-punk revivalists The Faint to an unknown fan who submitted a remix via the Internet.

"I'm very pleased with the way it turned out," says Trent Reznor. "I reached out to heroes, friends and strangers....I encouraged those I approached to do anything and insert themselves as much as possible into the track. It's always interesting for me to hear my work reinterpreted -- I hope it is for you as well."

Fans can even reinterpret and remix Year Zero themselves. The CD package for Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D includes a DVD-ROM containing every track from Year Zero in multi-track format, ready to be remixed, and a special Web site, remix.nin.com, will debut soon. Says Reznor, "Remixes and fun encouraged."

Listen to Kronos & Enrique Gonzalez Müller's remix of Another Version of the Truth on our website, Facebook, and MySpace. Purchase the album on Amazon and iTunes.

November 15, 2007

Be a Kronos fan on Facebook! We've put up a bunch of live & unreleased tracks that aren't available anywhere else on our new Facebook player. You can also listen to Another Version of the Truth, Kronos' contribution to the just-released Nine Inch Nails remix album.

Plus there's live concert footage of Kronos' performance from last month with Tom Waits at the 21st Annual Bridge School Benefit, which Rolling Stone called "the undisputed highlight of the concert." It was an amazing night, and we had a photographer on hand behind the scenes to document the show.

Come to www.facebook.com/kronosquartet and click on "Become a Fan"!

On October 27th & 28th Kronos will perform with Tom Waits at the 21st Annual Bridge School Benefit in Mountain View, CA. Organized by Neil and Pegi Young, the concert features an amazing line-up of acoustic performances by Neil Young, Metallica, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eddie Vedder with Flea & Jack Irons, John Mayer, Tegan & Sara, and Regina Spektor. Proceeds from the shows support the Bridge School, a school in northern California which assists mentally and physically handicapped children.

The last time Waits teamed up with Kronos was in 2003 for a concert at Lincoln Center in New York to benefit the humanitarian organization Healing the Divide. A live recording of the performance was released earlier this year, featuring Diamond In Your Mind and three additional Waits & Kronos tracks - Way Down in the Hole, God's Away on Business, and Lost in the Harbor. Don't miss a rare opportunity to hear Waits & Kronos perform live together!

Read more about the concert on the Bridge School Benefit website. Tickets are available through Livenation and Ticketmaster. Listen to Tom Waits & Kronos performance of God's Away On Business on our MySpace page.

Kronos is thrilled to be performing with composer and percussionist Glenn Kotche -- a.k.a. the Grammy-winning band Wilco's drummer -- at the SFJAZZ Festival in San Francisco next week! His new piece for string quartet and drum kit, titled Anomaly, will receive its world premiere performance at Herbst Theater on October 25 and 26.

After hearing Kotche's album Mobile, which included elements of Balinese storytelling, Reich-influenced minimalism, and insect sounds, David Harrington of Kronos asked him to write something for Kronos. Composing the piece while on tour with Wilco, Kotche has Kronos exploring new sonic territory -- including bowing and ringing handbells. “Some parts are beautiful," Kotche says, "things I couldn’t play on drums. That’s the way I treated the whole thing: four players in the quartet. I have each player to act like a limb to explore rhythmic ideas. If I could have a violin be my right hand and a cello be my left foot, what would it sound like?” Kotche, heralded by the Chicago Tribune for his "unfailing taste, technique and discipline," will share the stage with Kronos at these performances.

Also joining Kronos at the SFJAZZ festival will be instrument builder and sound artist Walter Kitundu, whose Cerulean Sweet III honors jazz great Charles Mingus through the use of snippets of his piano improvisations on vinyl played by Kronos and Kitundu on phonoharps, the instruments created by Kitundu for this piece. The concert will also feature the US premiere of Sinawi by Bay Area performance artist Dohee Lee, who will join Kronos on stage for these shows, a new arrangement of Thelonious Monk's 'Round Midnight by Randall Woolf, music by cartoon music master Raymond Scott and cartoon music-influenced John Zorn, and a rare performance of Kronos's legendary version of Television's Marquee Moon. Don't miss it!

To learn more and purchase tickets, visit SFJAZZ's website.

September 4, 2007

On September 4, Nonesuch Records releases Kronos Quartet Plays Sigur Rós exclusively on iTunes. The two pieces included on this download-only release have both been staples of Kronos' live concerts for several years, but have never been available for purchase: an arrangement of Icelandic experimental rock group Sigur Rós' Flugufrelsarinn and a Jimi Hendrix-inspired version of The Star-Spangled Banner.

"I first heard Sigur Rós in 2000 and it was thrilling," said David Harrington, Kronos founder and artistic director. "I could not stop listening to them. Kronos had to play their music. Sigur Rós create entire universes with their sound: imaginary places populated by desires and colors and feelings that belong solely to the fleetingly understood realm of music."

In 2002 Kronos commissioned an arrangement of Flugufrelsarinn from the Ágætis Byrjun album. In its original, sung version, Flugufrelsarinn relates a parable of salvation and sacrifice, in which an unnamed narrator tries to rescue helpless flies in a lake from the jaws of the approaching salmon. In Stephen Prutsman's arrangement for Kronos, the work takes on a new delicateness while losing none of its essential mystery.

The Quartet has been playing its Prutsman/Kronos version of The Star-Spangled Banner - inspired by Jimi Hendrix's famous Woodstock interpretation - in concert since 2003. The Los Angeles Times called a recent performance of the piece, "a fiery political protest that recalled (Kronos') roots."

Click here to purchase Kronos Quartet Plays Sigur Rós, and click here to listen to Flugufrelsarinn.

We're excited to announce our 2007/2008 tour dates! Kronos will be performing all over the world this season, so visit our website to check if Kronos will be performing near you.

This September Kronos will perform Awakening, a musical meditation on the anniversary of the events of 9/11, at Clarice Smith Center Performing Arts Center on Friday, September 7, and at Duke University on Friday, September 14. Awakening, a special program with works from 12 countries, includes the title composition from longtime Kronos collaborator, Uzbek composer Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky. Other composers featured on the program include Argentinians Grammy-winner Osvaldo Golijov and Oscar-winner Gustavo Santaolalla (from the film Darkness 9/11); Americans Michael Gordon (The Sad Park) and Terry Riley (One Earth, One People, One Love, the concluding section of Sun Rings); and the Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen (Winter Was Hard). For music, video, interviews, and more information about Awakening, visit the Clarice Smith Center's website.

On October 3, 5, and 6, the BAM Next Wave Festival presents Kronos Quartet : More Than Four with special guest collaborators Kimmo Pohjonen, Samuli Kosminen, and Erik Sanko. Finnish accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen and sampling artist Samuli Kosminen join Kronos for Uniko, a US premiere composed by Pohjonen and Kosminen which explores the concept of dreams using the sounds of accordion, strings, and samples, alongside light and video. A world premiere commissioned by BAM for the 25th Next Wave Festival, Dear Mme., is staged and composed by Erik Sanko-theater artist (The Fortune Teller), musician (John Lurie's Lounge Lizards, junk-rock band Skeleton Key), and puppet-maker. Featuring Kronos and a fifteen-foot puppet, Dear Mme., is the story of a writer who continually endeavors to rewrite his own life story and win the heart of a beautiful woman.

Three guest artists will join Kronos for performances at the SFJAZZ Festival in San Francisco on October 25th and 26th: Glenn Kotche, Walter Kitundu, and Dohee Lee. Kotche, composer and drummer for the Grammy-winning band Wilco, will join Kronos for the world premiere of Anomaly, written by Kotche for Kronos. Musician, vocalist, and performance artist Lee will accompany Kronos for the US premiere of Sinawi. In Kitundu's work Cerulean Sweet III - inspired by a few snippets of Charles Mingus' piano improvisations - artist, musician, and instrument builder Kitundu will join Kronos in playing phonoharps that have been created especially by Kitundu for the five of them.

On November 10, Kronos will perform all three of Górecki's string quartets in the course of one evening in Górecki's hometown of Katowice, Poland, with the composer in attendance. All three of Górecki's string quartets - Already It Is Dusk (Quartet No. 1), Quasi una Fantasia (Quartet No. 2), and Piesni Spiewaja ("...songs are sung") (Quartet No. 3) - were written especially for Kronos. The three quartets have never been performed like this before.

Other fall highlights include a performance of Visual Music in Mexico City, and performances in Zurich, Budapest, and Copenhagen.

Click here for a complete list of 2007 / 2008 tour dates.

July 11, 2007

Healing the Divide: Tom Waits + Kronos

In September 2003, Kronos teamed up with Tom Waits for a concert at Lincoln Center in New York to benefit the humanitarian organization Healing the Divide, and a live recording of the performance was released on July 10th. The full album, Healing the Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation, features the single Diamond In Your Mind and three additional Waits & Kronos tracks - Way Down in the Hole, God's Away on Business, and Lost in the Harbor. Other performers that night included Philip Glass, Anoushka Shankar, and Foday Musa Suso.

The concert featuring this rare collaboration between Kronos and Waits, with bassist Greg Cohen, was the culmination of a 20-day U.S. tour by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. About his participation in the event, Waits said (in his inimitable style), "I'm no fool. It's a spiritual insurance policy. Hell, at my age, the next group I put together, everyone may be playing a harp. All kidding aside, I owed His Holiness a favor. He did all my papers in school."

Proceeds from the sales of the album will benefit Healing the Divide (a non-profit organization formed by Richard Gere in 2001 to generate innovative appraches to solving humanitarian crises) and its Tibetan Health Initiative, which provides health insurance to Buddhist monks and nuns.

Healing the Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation is available on iTunes, Amazon.com, and eMusic. Listen to Diamond In Your Mind on our Myspace page.

Osvaldo Golijov: Oceana

Kronos is also featured on Oceana, a collection of three major works by composer Osvaldo Golijov. The album was also released this Tuesday, on Deutsche Grammophon, and features Kronos' performance of Tenebrae, a two-movement work for string quartet. In addition to Tenebrae, the album includes Golijov's Oceana performed by Brazilian vocalist Luciana Souza and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and Three Songs, performed by soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, both conducted by Robert Spano.

"I wrote [Tenebrae]," Golijov says, "as a consequence of witnessing two contrasting realities in a short period of time in September 2000. I was in Israel at the start of a new wave of violence...and a week later I took my son to the new planetarium in New York where we could see the Earth as a beautiful blue dot in space. I wanted to write a piece that could be listened to from different perspectives." The meditative work in two movements "is about pain," says Golijov, "but pain seen from inside and from a distance."

Oceana is available on iTunes and Amazon.com. Listen to excerpts and learn more about the album here.

iTunes asked Kronos' founder David Harrington what he's been listening to lately, so he put together a playlist! As you might expect from Kronos' wide-ranging repertoire, his eclectic selection goes from Swedish folk music to an Ethiopian saxophone master to Elvis (yes, that Elvis).

Read David's comments & listen here.

May 22, 2007

We're excited to announce our summer tour dates! Kronos will be performing all over Europe this summer, so take a look at our upcoming tour dates to see if Kronos will be appearing near you.

Kronos will perform three concerts in the U.K. in July as part of the WOMAD Festival and the New Crowed Hope Festival. On July 27th, Kronos performs at the 25th anniversary of WOMAD, a multi-day festival in Charlton Park with over 70 world-class artists, like Peter Gabriel and Mariza, from 40 different countries. On July 28th and 29th, Kronos will be performing at Peter Sellars' New Crowned Hope festival at the Barbican in London. The concerts will feature the UK premieres of both Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic & Henryk Górecki's String Quartet No. 3, as well as a performance of Alternative Radio: Another World Is Possible, featuring special guests David Barsamian, Tariq Ali, and Wu Man.

Kronos will also be performing at the Festival de Saint-Denis on July 2nd. The performance in the historic basilica of Saint Denis (the burial site of almost all of the French monarchs, dating back to Clovis I in the 5th century) features the world premiere of Encandilado, a new work by former Under 30 Project recipient Felipe Pérez Santiago, along with pieces by Terry Riley and John Adams.

Visit our upcoming tour dates for a complete list of summer tour dates.

May 16, 2007

On May 4th & 5th, DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation appeared as a headlining event at the Tribeca Film Festival. An audio and visual re-imagining of D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking and polarizing 1915 classic The Birth of a Nation, the work combines DJ Spooky's skills as a club DJ, multimedia storyteller and social critic to transform the silent-era epic into a commentary on political corruption and racism. The Tribeca screenings marked the premiere of a new soundtrack recorded by Kronos.

Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman's documentary Nanking was also featured at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. A documentary chronicling the Rape of Nanking, the film uses interviews with survivors, letters, diaries, and other reports of the destruction to tell the story of the Japanese invasion of Nanking during the early days of World War II. Kronos recorded Phil Marshall's score for the film. In addition to the Tribeca screening, Nanking premiered & received critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

On May 15th, Darren Aronofsky's film The Fountain was released on DVD. Spanning over 1,000 years and told through three parallel stories, The Fountain is an odyssey about one man's struggle to save the woman he loves. The soundtrack, which received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score, features Clint Mansell's music performed by Kronos and Glaswegian band Mogwai.

A String Quartet in Her Throat, a short film and performance of Kronos & Tanya Tagaq's piece Nunavut, is nominated for 2 Leo Awards, which honors the best in British Columbian television and film production. The film is nominated for Best Arts Documentary and Best Musical Score in a Documentary.

May 10, 2007

On Saturday, May 5th, Peak Performances @ Montclair presented the world premiere of Trimpin & Kronos Quartet's 4 Cast: Unpredictable at Alexander Kasser Theater. This unique and visually stunning piece — which was commissioned by Peak Performances — is unlike anything Kronos has ever done before, and it featured the debut of the Jack Box sculpture, video by Willie Williams, and several other instruments designed by Trimpin.

Seattle-based Trimpin is a MacArthur "Genius" Award-winning sculptor, musician, and composer, most of whose pieces integrate both sculpture and music in some way, and many of which make use of computers to play these instruments.

Says David Harrington, "I have hoped that Kronos could work with Trimpin since I first met him in 1982. To walk into his studio, as I've been fortunate to do many times, is to be reinvigorated by the musical possibilities in all sorts of objects. In that magical place, you can see Trimpin's imagination everywhere you look. It is this sense of invention and discovery, and the thrill of listening and watching objects have new lives, that I want to share with our audience."

April 30, 2007

On April 28, four string quartets made their debut in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall as part of the Kronos Quartet Young Artists Concert. The performance was the culmination of six days of intensive coaching through Kronos: Signature Works, a Professional Training Workshop run by the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall. Kronos worked with the groups on a selection of music that has been brought into the string quartet repertoire through Kronos' three decades of commissioning new work. The workshop was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for these quartets — all professional musicians in their 20s, selected through an international application process — to work closely with Kronos, who were able to share their firsthand experiences with this music. The four participating quartets were the Afiara String Quartet, the EnAccord String Quartet, the JACK Quartet, and the Pangea String Quartet.

March 9, 2007

Together with music publisher Boosey & Hawkes, we are proud to introduce the inaugural volume of the Kronos Collection, a performing edition with sheet music for three essential works in Kronos’ repertoire. Each volume of the Kronos Collection contains scores and performance parts, edited by Kronos, for three works written expressly for the group. Also included are insights from Kronos on performing this music. Volume 1 contains Terry Riley’s Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector, Hamza El Din’s Escalay (Water Wheel), and Aleksandra Vrebalov’s Pannonia Boundless.

Throughout the years, musicians have repeatedly requested music, information about the composers with whom Kronos has worked, and details about playing techniques used to perform many of the pieces. None of the music in this collection has ever been made widely available in an edition designed for performance, and each piece holds a special place in Kronos’ repertoire.

Visit our web store to view Kronos Collection: Volume 1.

March 3, 2007

This week Kronos embarked on a month-long tour to Australia, China, and Korea. The legendary Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle will join Kronos in four performances of music from the Grammy-nominated album You’ve Stolen My Heart at the Sydney Opera House, WOMADelaide festival in Adelaide, and Hamer Hall in Melbourne. Other highlights include the world premiere of Dohee Lee’s Sinawi in Tongyeong, Korea, and performances of Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera and Terry Riley's Sun Rings in Korea and China. Kronos will also be taking part in several masterclasses and residency activities in Tongyeong, working with three young quartets from Korea, Japan, and China.

For a complete list of tour dates and programs, visit our concerts page.

January 21, 2007

On January 14th, Kronos, joined by former cellist Joan Jeanrenaud, were honored with the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award from Chamber Music America. This award is CMA's highest honor, and is presented annually to individuals who have made significant and lasting contributions to the chamber music field. Recipients of the award have included exceptional performers, teachers, coaches, arts administrators, presenters, and others who have enriched our national culture by fostering a greater appreciation for chamber music.

Learn more in Chamber Music Magazine’s cover story.

December 14, 2006

This morning the 2007 Golden Globe Award nominations were announced, and Clint Mansell received one for his score for The Fountain! Kronos & Mogwai performed on the soundtrack, and you can hear some of the music here. Congratulations, Clint!

The awards will be be held Monday, January 15, 2007 and telecast live on NBC at 8 PM EST. Click here to read the full list of nominees.

November 15, 2006

Good news, Requiem for a Dream fans: Composer Clint Mansell has once again teamed up with director Darren Aronofsky for the film The Fountain, opening in theaters on November 22nd! The new soundtrack, featuring Mansell's music performed by the Kronos Quartet and noise-rock band Mogwai, comes out November 21st on Nonesuch Records. We've posted two tracks from the soundtrack and the film's trailer on our MySpace page, so come listen and let us know what you think!

We're also busy touring - this week we're in Vienna performing in the New Crowned Hope Festival. The festival is curated by the visionary theatrical director Peter Sellars, who is celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth by inviting contemporary artists in music, dance, art, and film to create new projects that are as revolutionary now as Mozart's were in his time.

We're playing six different concerts in five days, featuring works by Osvaldo Golijov, Terry Riley, Henryk Gorecki, and Franghiz Ali-Zadeh. Our performances include Alternative Radio with David Barsamian, which will feature special guests historian Howard Zinn, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, and Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq.

For more information and to buy tickets, please visit New Crowned Hope's website.

November 1, 2006

We're excited to announce that Kronos will be leading a Professional Training Workshop for string quartets at Carnegie Hall from April 22 - 29, 2007. During the weeklong workshop, which is a program of the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, Kronos will coach four young quartets on works that have been written for the group by composers including Steve Reich, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Alexandra du Bois, and John Zorn, passing along the group's firsthand experiences of commissioning and performing new works. At the end of the workshop, the four quartets will perform a concert in Zankel Hall.

The application deadline is December 1st. Detailed guidelines and application materials are available at Carnegie Hall's website.

October 23, 2006

After a successful premiere at Carnegie Hall as part of Kronos: Live Mix, we're looking forward to another performance of Alternative Radio! On Wednesday, October 25th, Media Alliance presents Alternative Radio: Another World is Possible at the Brava Theater in San Francisco. David Barsamian's radio program, which addresses issues and viewpoints not covered in mainstream media, is transformed for stage in an evening of music and conversation with Tariq Ali, David Barsamian, and the Kronos Quartet. The evening's performance is a benefit for Media Alliance, an organization which promotes media excellence, ethics, diversity, and accountability in the interests of peace, justice, and social responsibility. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit Media Alliance's website.

October 16, 2006

Steve Reich turned 70 on October 3rd, and we're celebrating all month! On October 7th & 8th Kronos performed 5 different concerts in London over the span of 2 days as part of the Barbican's Phases - The Music of Steve Reich festival. This Saturday, October 21st we'll be taking part in New York's citywide Reich celebration at Carnegie Hall, which Alex Ross of The New Yorker called "most exciting thing on the entire New York season schedule." If you can't make it to Carnegie Hall, Kronos' recordings of Different Trains and Triple Quartet are featured on the newly released box set Phases: A Nonesuch Retrospective, a 5-disc collection of Reich's works from 1985 to present.

Click here to listen to the Barbican's Steve Reich - 5 Decades podcast. David Harrington and Steve Reich discuss Different Trains in episode 3, beginning at the 10 minute mark.

October 6, 2006

The application deadline for the Kronos: Under 30 Project, a program through which musicians under 30 years of age are selected to create new music for Kronos, is coming up! Complete applications must be received by October 16, 2006.

Carnegie Hall and Pop Montreal are joining Kronos in commissioning one selected composer to write a new piece of music specifically for Kronos. The Lucas Artists Program at the Montalvo Arts Center will then host the musician during a multi-week residency in Northern California. The commissioned composer will join Kronos in San Francisco, California, to prepare the new piece, and will travel to Carnegie Hall and to Pop Montreal for Kronos' performances of the work.

Anyone under the age of 30 is welcome to apply! For details, visit our website.

Don't miss out on this chance for Kronos to hear your music!

September 15, 2006

On September 11th at Herbst Theater in San Francisco, Kronos performed Awakening, a special program marking the fifth anniversary of the events of 9/11. The program featured the West Coast premiere of Michael Gordon's The Sad Park, written in response to the terrorist attacks and which incorporates taped voices of young schoolchildren near the site of the World Trade Center. The program also included music from 12 countries, including pieces from Afghanistan and Iraq. Says David Harrington, "Using this musical diversity as a tool, we want to open windows on an expansive interior place, a place where we can be surrounded by a wealth of musical perspectives. We hope to create equilibrium in the midst of imbalance: a special covering on an open wound. We also hope to find a location that one's inner ear can return to whenever the alarming movie from that horrific day replays itself."

"[The concert's] wake-up call demands wide dissemination," said LA Times critic Mark Swed, and we are currently planning future performances.

August 6, 2006

We've been enjoying the summer by playing some concerts outdoors, in Poland for Warsaw Summer Jazz Days and in Brooklyn for a performance of Philip Glass's score to the film Dracula. We have one more outdoor show this summer, in the San Francisco Bay Area this Sunday at Rancho Nicasio.

On July 19th, Kronos performed an open-air concert in Poland as part of Warsaw Summer Jazz Days. The city itself and the flower-covered lawn at Krolikarnia Park were beautiful! For an encore, we played Jimi Hendrix's Foxy Lady, which Kronos hasn't played live in years, along with our take on Hendrix's legendary version of the Star-Spangled Banner and Purple Haze.

As part of Celebrate Brooklyn, last week we joined Philip Glass for a performance of his score to the 1931 film Dracula (starring Bela Lugosi), which was shown simultaneously. Thousands of people turned out in Prospect Park for the performance, but an incredible thunderstorm ended the evening early. It was dramatic and eerie: lightning struck right as Dracula appeared onscreen for the first time. After the storm scene in the film, the real-life downpour began - so we had to finish the concert sooner than we had planned. We found some great fan photos and blog reviews, so take a look!

Coming up this Sunday afternoon at 4 PM, Kronos will be performing our last outdoor concert this summer at Rancho Nicasio in Nicasio, about an hour north of San Francisco. If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, come up and see the show! We had a great time performing here last summer because it's such a fun and unique setting. Where else can you can lounge on a lawn and eat barbecue while listening to Kronos? The program will include pieces by Michael Gordon, Osvaldo Golijov, Walter Kitundu, and Matmos. Tickets and directions are available here.

June 15, 2006

Come see Kronos this summer! Our summer tour includes a free Brooklyn performance of Philip Glass's score to Dracula with film, and a performance at the Colorado Music Festival of Terry Riley's multimedia work Sun Rings. Kronos also will be performing in Italy, Poland, and California before the summer's out.

Kronos will join Philip Glass on July 27 for a performance of Glass's score to the 1931 classic film Dracula, performed live with the film. This free event is being presented outdoors at the Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn as part of the 2006 Celebrate Brooklyn! festival.

On July 11, EcoArts and the Colorado Music Festival are bringing Kronos to Boulder, Colorado, for a performance of Terry Riley's evening-length multimedia work Sun Rings, commissioned by NASA and featuring visuals from NASA's archive. EcoArts is a 10-day event where a diverse array of artists, scientists and thinkers gather to address environmental issues and challenges. Click here for ticket information.

May 11, 2006

Today Kronos embarks on a three-week international tour, which will span major cities including Paris, Vienna, Rome, Madrid, Moscow, and Porto. Highlights of the tour include the European premieres of Derek Charke's Cercle du Nord III at the Wiener Konzerthaus and of Michael Gordon's The Sad Park at the Epau Festival in Le Mans, France, as well as the French premiere of Stringsongs by Meredith Monk at Paris' Theatre de la Ville. Kronos will also perform the Russian premiere of Sun Rings, the 80-minute multimedia work by Terry Riley, with the Sirin Choir at Moscow's International House of Music on May 30. For a complete list of tour dates, visit our concerts page.

May 10, 2006

Kronos has recorded a new piece with Matmos, entitled Solo Buttons for Joe Meek. The track is featured on Matmos' new album The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of the Beast, released May 9. The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of the Beast is a collection of "sound portraits" or musical biographies of people Matmos admires, ranging from King Ludwig II of Bavaria to Talented Mr. Ripley author Patricia Highsmith. Solo Buttons for Joe Meek paints a surf-rock-tinged picture of legendary UK record producer and recording studio pioneer Joe Meek, perhaps most widely known for the 1962 hit "Telstar" by The Tornados.

Kronos recently performed Joe Meek live with Matmos and guitarist Mark Lightcap as an encore at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco on April 21 and 22. To hear the track and read more about Matmos, visit Kronos on MySpace.com.

April 17, 2006

This Friday, April 21, and Saturday, April 22, Kronos will be joined by electronic music duo Matmos and instrument builder Walter Kitundu for the world premieres of two new collaborations at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The concerts are part of the Yerba Buena Center's Bay Area Now 4 series, which celebrates the work of artists based in the SF Bay Area who are breaking new ground in contemporary artistic expression.

Walter Kitundu builds multi-stringed instruments made from record players that rely on the turntable’s sensitivity to vibration. For this joint appearance with Kronos, he wrote Cerulean Sweet III, which honors jazz great Charles Mingus; the work features Kronos and Kitundu performing on "phonoharps," the instruments Kitundu created specifically for Kronos.

In the tradition of musique concrete, Matmos (Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt) makes music from recorded sounds—past projects have included amplified crayfish nerve tissue, the sounds of surgery, and light-sensitive theremins played by snails' antennae. They will perform alongside the Quartet in For Terry Riley, which includes manipulated samples from a rehearsal of Terry Riley's 1980 work for Kronos, Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector, as well as the sounds of Kronos bowing toilet seats, a magazine rack, a deep fat fryer, and a hub cap.

To experience these rare joint appearances, visit www.ybca.org for ticket info.

March 22, 2006

This weekend marks the opening of Kronos: Live Mix, a six-concert festival presented by Carnegie Hall from Friday, March 24 to Sunday, March 26, and Thursday, April 6 to Saturday, April 8.

The multifaceted concerts of Live Mix include a collaboration with Azerbaijani composers Franghiz Ali-Zadeh and Rahman Asadollahi, and a tribute to the independent public affairs radio program Alternative Radio with broadcasting legend David Barsamian and noted historian Howard Zinn. The festival features new works, commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Kronos, by Henryk Gorecki, Glenn Branca and James Thirlwell, as well as the world premiere of a quartet by Michael Gordon. The festival culminates on April 8 with a rare concert appearance with tabla master Zakir Hussain, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, and Asha Bhosle, the legendary Queen of Bollywood and Kronos’ partner on You’ve Stolen My Heart, Kronos' most recent Grammy-nominated album.

For full details, click here; for ticketing and schedule information, visit www.carnegiehall.org

March 13, 2006

Kronos will perform the world premiere of Alexandra Du Bois' Night Songs (Nachtliederen), String Quartet No. 3, at Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford University on Wednesday, March 15, in a concert presented by Stanford Lively Arts.  Written for the Quartet, Night Songs is based on the writings of Etty Hillesum, a young Dutch woman who was killed at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Du Bois, currently a graduate student at The Juilliard School, was the first recipient of the Kronos: Under 30 Project, a commissioning program for young composers; Night Songs is her second quartet written for Kronos. To prepare for the work, Du Bois read Hillsum's unabridged works three times and traveled to Amsterdam, Westerbork and Auschwitz to immerse herself in the sights and sounds of her life. About her inspiration for the title, Du Bois writes: "Night can represent the darkness of that time, of humanity, but it also represents the unconscious. Etty Hillesum was always uplifting—she was almost always singing a song. She had an incredible sense of inner light."
 
Night Songs (Nachtliederen), String Quartet No. 3, was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by Deborah and Creig Hoyt in memory of Dr. Wayne Caygill. The work will receive its New York premiere at Zankel Hall on March 24, the opening night of Kronos' Live Mix Festival at Carnegie Hall, and will performed in San Sebastian, Spain, and Paris, France, in May.
 
Also on the program at Stanford are works by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Hildegard von Bingen, as well as the West Coast premiere of Gabriela Frank's Inkarrí (co-commissioned by Lively Arts). For tickets, please visit the Stanford Lively Arts website.

January 26, 2006

This week Kronos tours Canada with a new program: Nunavut. The concert culminates with a newly commissioned world premiere collaboration (also called Nunavut) of Kronos and Inuit throat-singer Tanya Tagaq. Nunavut also features the work of Canadian composer Derek Charke; Kronos will perform selections from his Inuit Throat Song Games and Cercle du Nord III, a new work featuring field recordings from the Canadian North. Also on the program are works by Arvo Part, Peteris Vasks, Xploding Plastix, and Sigur Ros.

Nunavut receives its world premiere on Saturday, January 28 in Vancouver, presented by the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. The program was previewed in Whitehorse (Yukon Territory) on January 24, and will be performed in Calgary on January 29 as part of One Yellow Rabbit's High Performance Rodeo Festival.

The world premiere of Nunavut will be broadcast February 23 on Espace Musique in Vancouver, and at a later date on CBC Radio Two in Vancouver. A performance of Nunavut will also be broadcast on CBC Television's Opening Night program on March 16. Opening Night is an award-winning weekly two-hour series that features arts programming from Canada and around the world. Check channels and show times here.

Nunavut by Tanya Tagaq and the Kronos Quartet was commissioned by the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC, CBC Television, the Canada Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Derek Charke's Cercle du Nord III and Inuit Throat Song Games were commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by CBC Radio Two and Radio-Canada's Espace Musique.

January 24, 2006

On January 14, The Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire presented the world premiere of Love Bleeds Radiant, a new work by Dan Visconti. Love Bleeds Radiant was commissioned for Kronos through the Kronos: Under 30 Project/#3, a commissioning and residency program for composers under 30 years of age. This year's Project is a collaboration of the Kronos Quartet, The Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, The Sally and Don Lucas Artists Programs at Montalvo Arts Center, and the American Music Center.

According to the composer, Love Bleeds Radiant is informed by his experience both as an electric guitarist and a classically trained violinist. The piece, which utilizes distortion and other live electronics to emulate the sounds of an old 78-rpm recording, is meant to evoke the language and emotions of the blues.

About his piece, Visconti writes, "There's a fascinating disconnect between the tough swagger of many early blues lyrics and the underlying subtext of vulnerability, tenderness and grief. Often, a superficial statement of machismo can shelter a fragile interior flawed with sadness; likewise, sometimes a veneer of slick, stylized pathos conceals the devastation of a violent, brooding core. This pronounced schism lends interest and depth to an otherwise straightforward genre, and the way in which the slight crack of imperfection can grow to become a portal into private darkness continues to engage me each time one of those old records is spun. I've sought to develop this musical stance in Love Bleeds Radiant…."

To read more about Love Bleeds Radiant and Dan Visconti's residency at The Hopkins Center, check out his blog here.

December 8, 2005

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) announced the nominations for the 48th Annual GRAMMY Awards this morning and we are excited to report that Kronos and Asha Bhosle's Nonesuch album You've Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman's Bollywood has received a nomination for Best Contemporary World Music Album. The awards ceremony will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2006, at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Also, on February 3, Kronos will be honored with NARAS' President's Merit Award at the annual Salute to Classical Music.  The award is in recognition of Kronos' "extraordinary artistic accomplishments and strong commitment to educational initiatives." This luncheon will be held in Los Angeles, and is one of the Academy's hallmark events during the GRAMMY week celebrations.

For a complete list of nominees, please visit www.grammy.com

November 1, 2005

BBC Radio 3 has announced the nominees for its 2006 Awards for World Music, and the Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle have been nominated in the "Culture-Crossing" category. The award winners will be unveiled on February 18, followed by the annual Poll Winners Concert, which takes place at the Brixton Academy in London on April 7. To read more information, please visit the BBC Radio 3 website.

October 20, 2005

Yesterday evening at the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn, Estonia, Kronos presented two world premieres: Peteris Vasks's String Quartet No. 5 and Moving Still: H.C. Andersen 200 by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen.

Kronos was joined by guest vocalist Paul Hillier for Moving Still: H.C. Andersen 200, written for Kronos and Hillier in commemoration of the bicentenary of the birth of Hans Christian Andersen. The two-movement work by individualistic Danish composer Gudmundsen-Holmgreen features lyrics based on Andersen's texts. The nervous, pulsating first movement uses the short story "In a Thousand Years," in which we look through Andersen's 19th-century eyes at a futuristic, fantastic world where Americans will cross the Atlantic in "steam ships of the air" and "do Europe in a week." The second movement, "In Denmark I am Born," is based on a traditional Danish-sounding melody which gradually takes on outside influences.

Peteris Vasks's String Quartet No. 5 is the second work that the Latvian composer has written for Kronos. About this piece, Vasks wrote that he "wished to speak of how we are each a part of the world, and a world unto ourselves, of the existence and necessity of idealism, the love around us and in us." He dedicated this quartet to the musicians of Kronos, "my friends and like-minded colleagues. We believe music can change us for the better." To purchase Kronos' Grammy-nominated recording of Vasks's Fourth Quartet, released on Nonesuch Records, click here.

Gudmundsen-Holmgreen's Moving Still and Vasks's String Quartet No. 5 will also be performed in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 21, and Malmo, Sweden, on October 22.

October 14, 2005

On October 15, 2005, Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki's long-awaited String Quartet No. 3, Piesni Spiewaja ("...songs are sung"), Op. 67, will receive its world premiere in a performance by the Kronos Quartet in Bielsko-Biala, Poland. The concert is highlighted as the final performance of the 10th Festival of Polish Composers, and takes place in the 3500-seat Church of Bielsko-Aleksandrowice.

Gorecki, who attained worldwide recognition with the bestselling 1992 recording of his Third Symphony, wrote Piesni Spiewaja for Kronos in 1994/95, but held onto the work for a decade before sending it to the group. His only comment on the matter was written in the score: "In the intervening years there were several dates set for the work's premiere by the Kronos Quartet, who also commissioned this quartet, but I continued to hold back from releasing it to the world. I don't know why."

All three of Gorecki's string quartets were written for and dedicated to the Kronos Quartet. His first two quartets, Already It Is Dusk (No. 1, Op. 62) and Quasi una Fantasia (No. 2, Op. 64), were recorded by Kronos and are available on Nonesuch Records.

Saturday's premiere will be paired with performances of two major choral works, Krzysztof Penderecki's Te Deum and Gorecki's Amen, conducted by Mr. Penderecki. Mr. Gorecki will also be in attendance. The next scheduled performance of Piesni Spiewaja is the U.S. premiere at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in New York on March 24, 2006.

For more information about Piesni Spiewaja, listen to Polskie Radio's English-language interview with Gorecki biographer Adrian Thomas here.

September 30, 2005

The Barbican in London will present India Calling: Songs from R. D. Burman's Bollywood with Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle on October 7. Paying homage to Rahul Dev Burman, Bhosle's late husband and one of India's most influential Bollywood composers, the celebratory performance highlights songs from Kronos and Asha Bhosle's new Nonesuch album, You've Stolen My Heart: Songs from R. D. Burman's Bollywood. The concert also features special guest, Debopriyo Sarkar, on percussion.

India Calling: Songs from R. D. Burman's Bollywood received its world premiere on September 22 and 23 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The program was also performed at UCLA's Royce Hall in Los Angeles on September 24.

A final performance of India Calling will take place at New York's Carnegie Hall on April 8, 2006. Tickets are still available-visit www.carnegiehall.org for details.

August 3, 2005

The Kronos Quartet announces that cellist Jeffrey Zeigler has joined the group. Zeigler, who has been performing with Kronos as guest cellist this summer, has already appeared with the group in Chicago, Seattle, Aspen, Dobbiaco (Italy), Molde (Norway), and several other cities. He replaces Jennifer Culp, who performed with Kronos for six years. More...

May 9, 2005

Kronos is on tour in Europe this month. Highlights include concerts at the 28th annual Dresden Music Festival, including a performance of Julia Wolfe's My Beautiful Scream with the Dresden Symphony on May 16. The tour also features the world premiere of Walter Kitundu's Cerulean Sweet on May 19 at Theatre de la Ville in Paris. For a complete list of European dates, please visit our Concerts page.

April 28, 2005

On Sunday May 1, the Kronos Quartet and Wu Man (pipa) will perform the world premiere of The Cusp of Magic, a new composition by longtime Kronos collaborator, Terry Riley. The six-movement work was commissioned for Kronos in honor of Riley's 70th birthday celebrations. The concert is presented by Cal Performances at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley campus; for additional performances of The Cusp of Magic, please visit our Concerts page.

About the work, Riley said, "The Cusp of Magic significantly fills the picture that my collaboration with Kronos has been portraying for nearly 25 years. My compositions for Kronos are the most important of my notated works, each one staking out a different mood and musical structure and setting up new challenges for both composer and performer. In this work, the different timbre and resonance of the Chinese pipa and the western string ensemble highlight the crossover regions of cultural reference, so that western musical themes might be projected with an eastern accent and vice-versa. My plan was to make these regions seamless so that the listener is carried between worlds without an awareness of how he/she ends up there."

March 24, 2005

The Kronos Quartet premieres a collaboration with Moroccan-born, Israeli-bred singer Emil Zrihan and his group on Saturday, April 2, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The performance, presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will feature new works and arrangements of Zrihan’s classic Arabic-inspired material by Osvaldo Golijov and Ljova.

Known internationally as "The Moroccan Nightingale," Zrihan evokes his Sephardic roots by combining the Jewish cantorial tradition with Arab-Andalusian song and elements of flamenco and Arab folk music. He is currently the cantor of the main synagogue in Ashkelon, Israel.

February 23, 2005

On February 19th, Kronos embarked on an extensive tour of Australia and New Zealand, produced by Arts Projects Australia and presented by Musica Viva Australia, Chamber Music New Zealand, and the WOMAD Festival. Kronos will perform concerts featuring works written for the group by Peter Sculthorpe, Willem Jeths, Steve Reich, Alexandra du Bois, and others. In addition, the group will perform the evening-length multimedia production Visual Music at the Perth Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, and Melbourne's Hamer Hall. At the WOMADelaide and WOMAD New Zealand festivals, Kronos will also perform with special guest, Irish accordionist Tony MacMahon.

Two of the concerts will be broadcast live on radio: on February 23 by Concert FM Radio in New Zealand, and on February 28 by ABC Radio in Australia.

Visit our Concerts page for tour dates.

January 21, 2005

This month, Kronos releases a new CD on Nonesuch Records entitled Mugam Sayagi: Music of Franghiz Ali-Zadeh. The disc includes four works by the Azerbaijani composer, three of which - Oasis (1998), Apsheron Quintet (2001), and Mugam Sayagi (1993) - were commissioned by Kronos. Also on the recording is Ali-Zadeh's Music for Piano, which is performed by the composer.

Born in Baku, Azerbaijan (formerly of the Soviet Union), Ali-Zadeh combines contemporary music of the west with the long-neglected Azerbaijani tradition of mugam. The album title Mugam Sayagi means "in the style of mugam."

Kronos Artistic Director and Violinist David Harrington says, "Franghiz's pieces unfold with a magical sense of timing. New scenes arrive mysteriously, each born at just the right moment. She gives us exquisite interior worlds of instrumental color and we dwell in places we've never been before."

January 21, 2005

Kronos Quartet announces the premiere of Stringsongs, a new work by composer, singer, director, and choreographer Meredith Monk. Stringsongs, which is Monk's first piece written for string quartet, was commissioned for Kronos by the Carnegie Hall Corporation; the Barbican, London; the National Endowment for the Arts; and Ms. Alta Tingle. The piece receives its world premiere on January 22 at the Barbican in London. Following is the North American premiere at the Brock University Centre for the Arts in St. Catharine's, Canada, on January 27, and the US premiere at Carnegie's Zankel Hall in New York on February 5. These performances take place as part of Meredith Monk's 40th Anniversary Season, a series of events celebrating Monk's four decades of work in the arts.