| Kronos Quartet | |
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Kronos Quartet performing in Warsaw, Poland in the summer of 2006 |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Seattle, Washington, United States |
| Genres | Contemporary classical |
| Occupations | Chamber ensemble |
| Years active | 1973-present |
| Labels | Nonesuch/Elektra Records |
| Website | www.KronosQuartet.org |
| Members | |
| David Harrington, violin John Sherba, violin Hank Dutt, viola Jeffrey Zeigler, cello |
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| Past members | |
| Jim Shallenberger (original member, 1973-75), violin Roy Lewis (1975-76), violin Tim Killian (original member, 1973-76), viola Walter Gray (original member, 1973-78), cello Joan Jeanrenaud (1978-99), cello Jennifer Culp (1999-2005), cello |
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Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers (from 1978 to 1999) had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan Jeanrenaud on cello. In 1999, Joan Jeanrenaud left Kronos because she was "eager for something new";[1] she was replaced by Jennifer Culp[2] who, in turn, left in 2005 and was replaced by Jeffrey Zeigler. With almost forty studio albums to their credit and having performed worldwide, they were called "probably the most famous 'new music' group in the world"[3] and were praised in philosophical studies of music for the inclusiveness of their repertoire.[4]
By the time the quartet celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary, in 1999, they had a repertoire of over 600 works, which included 400 string quartets written for them, more than 3,000 performances, seven first-prize ASCAP awards, Edison Awards in classical and popular music, and had sold more than 1.5 million records.[5]
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Kronos specializes in new music/contemporary classical music and has a long history of commissioning new works. Over 600 works have been created for the Kronos Quartet. They have worked with many minimalist composers including John Adams (composer), Arvo Pärt, George Crumb, Henryk Górecki, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Roberto Carnevale, Terry Riley, and Kevin Volans; collaborators hail from a diversity of countries--Kaija Saariaho from Finland, Pēteris Vasks from Latvia, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh from Azerbaijan, Roberto Paci Dalò from Italy, Jan W. Morthenson from Sweden, and Osvaldo Golijov from Argentina. Some of Kronos' string-quartet arrangements were published in 2007.[6]
When Kronos turned 30, in 2003, they decided on a commissioning process for composers under the age of 30, in the hope of bringing some of the talented young composers to light. The program is now run in cooperation with Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Montalvo Arts Center. The first recipient was Alexandra du Bois (at the time a student at Indiana University, later a Juilliard School graduate),[7] followed by Felipe Perez Santiago (born in Mexico in 1973),[8] and Dan Visconti (born in Illinois in 1982);[9] in 2007, Israeli composer Aviya Kopelman became the fourth.[10]
"I've always wanted the string quartet to be vital, and energetic, and alive, and cool, and not afraid to kick ass and be absolutely beautiful and ugly if it has to be. But it has to be expressive of life. To tell the story with grace and humor and depth. And to tell the whole story, if possible."
—David Harrington[11]
Kronos covers a very broad range of musical genres: Mexican folk, experimental, pre-classical early music, movie soundtracks (Requiem for a Dream, Heat, The Fountain), jazz and tango. Kronos has also recorded adaptations of Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze", Sigur Rós's "Flugufrelsarinn", Television's "Marquee Moon", and Raymond Scott's "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals".
Kronos has also worked with a variety of global musicians, including Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle;[12] Mexican-American painter Gronk; American soprano Dawn Upshaw; jazz composer/performer Pat Metheny; Mexican rockers Café Tacuba; Azerbaijani mugam singer Alim Qasimov; and the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks among others.
Kronos has performed live with the poet Allen Ginsberg, Ástor Piazzolla, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Tom Waits, David Bowie, and Björk, and has appeared on recordings with such diverse artists as the Dave Matthews Band, Nelly Furtado, Rokia Traore, Joan Armatrading, Brazilian electronica artist Amon Tobin, Texas yodeler Don Walser, Faith No More, Tiger Lillies and David Grisman.
The quartet also performed on the 1998 Dave Matthews Band album Before These Crowded Streets on the tracks Halloween and The Stone. They also appeared on the Nine Inch Nails remix album, Year Zero Remixed, released November 20, 2007, doing a rendition of the track Another Version of the Truth. They also performed Lee Brooks' score for the short film 2081, based on the Kurt Vonnegut short story "Harrison Bergeron."
In 2009, the quartet contributed an acoustic version of Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night" for the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization.
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