Carnegie Hall to Welcome Kronos Quartet, 4/2

Carnegie Hall presents the pioneering Kronos Quartet in a program of new works, including two world premieres, on Saturday, April 2 at 7:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall. Aleksandra Vrebalov's open-form piece, My Desert, My Rose, and Yotam Haber's South Africa-inspired break_break_break will receive their world premieres. The program also includes New York premieres of works by Nicole Lizée, N. Rajam, Wu Man, Karin Rehnqvist, Fodé Lassana Diabaté, and Albert Behar. A new arrangement by Jacob Garchik of "Baba O'Reilly," Pete Townshend's classic song for The Who, is also featured. Guest artists include kantele (Finnish zither) player Ritva Koistinen and electronic artist Philip White. Complete program information is listed below.

The new works by Vrebalov, Haber, Wu Man, and Diabaté were co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its 125 Commissions Project, in which 125 new works will be commissioned and premiered over five seasons in celebration of Carnegie Hall's current 125th anniversary. Fifty of these new works, including the four on this concert, are also part of Kronos's project Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. Music commissioned as part of Fifty for the Future-to be performed at Carnegie Hall and many other venues around the world-will be devoted to the most contemporary approaches to string quartet performance and designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals.

Holders of the 2015-2016 Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall, Kronos Quartet also lead a week-long workshop presented by the Weill Music Institute in the Hall's Resnick Education Wing from April 9-15 for three emerging professional string quartets. The Argus Quartet (from Los Angeles), Friction Quartet (from San Francisco), and Ligeti Quartet (from London) were selected through an audition process to work closely with Kronos on several new pieces-by Garth Knox, Wu Man, and Fodé Lassana Diabaté-from Carnegie Hall's 125 Commissions Project and Kronos's Fifty for the Future as well as selections from Terry Riley's Salome Dances for Peace, which was written for, premiered, and recorded by Kronos in the late 1980s. The workshop culminates with a public performance of these works by the three quartets on Friday, April 15 at 9:00 p.m. in Zankel Hall.

About the Artist
For more than 40 years, 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 Award 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).

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.

The Argus Quartet is dedicated to reinvigorating the audience-performer relationship through new and innovative concert presentations of diverse repertoire-connecting with and building up a community of engaged listeners is at the core of the quartet's mission. Past performances include appearances at Carnegie Hall, Laguna Beach Live!, Encinitas' Music By The Sea, Music Academy of the West, and the Cello Biennale Amsterdam. The quartet also recently premiered a new work by Eric Guinivan that was awarded a commissioning grant from Chamber Music America. This fall, Argus began an appointment as the Yale School of Music's Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence.

Friction Quartet, a San Francisco-based string quartet whose performances have been called "terribly beautiful" (San Francisco Classical Voice) and "stunningly passionate" (Calgary Herald), exists to expand the string quartet repertoire and audience for adventurous contemporary music through commissioning composers and performing in underserved schools and communities. Friction received a Chamber Music America grant to commission a piano quintet from Andy Akiho. John Adams shared Friction's video of the second movement of his first string quartet on his homepage and called it "spectacular." They are the first ensemble in residence at the Center for New Music in San Francisco.

The Ligeti Quartet is dedicated to performing modern and contemporary music, commissioning new works, and engaging diverse audiences. Formed in 2010, they were united by their fascination with György Ligeti's music. They have played throughout the UK and abroad, in venues such as the Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room, and the Barbican Centre, as well as in nightclubs, pubs, jazz clubs, on a fishing boat, and beside a giant polar bear. They regularly perform and record with artists outside classical music, including Wadada Leo Smith, Sean Noonan, and Shabaka Hutchings. The quartet is the Ensemble in Residence at Sheffield University.

About the Weill Music Institute's Workshops and Master Classes
Artists on the rise are given valuable access to world-class performers and composers who have established themselves on the Carnegie Hall stages. Participants are selected after responding to an open call for auditions. These up-and coming musicians (ages 18-35) receive coaching and mentoring that assists them in reaching their artistic and professional goals. The workshops are tuition-free for participants. Additional information and online applications are available at carnegiehall.org/workshops.