Kronos Quartet to Celebrate 40th Anniversary with Explorer Series Box Set, New CD and More, 4/8

These are heady times for Kronos Quartet, celebrating its 40th anniversary this season. As you may know, on April 8 Nonesuch is releasing the Kronos Explorer Series box set and a new CD, A Thousand Thoughts. Both releases spotlight the quartet's longstanding engagement with musical traditions from around the globe.

The Explorer Series set comprises five of the group's best-loved discs, each representing a different geographical region: Pieces of Africa, Night Prayers, Caravan, Nuevo, and Floodplain. A Thousand Thoughts features fifteen recordings - ten previously unreleased - with music and performers from fourteen countries across five continents, and includes the group's first tracks with its newest member, cellist Sunny Yang.

But wait, there's more! Just in the next few weeks:

• March 14 + 15: Kronos takes the stage in a two-night anniversary celebration at UCLA's Royce Hall. Info here and here.
• March 24: WQXR's Q2 stream celebrates the Big 40 with a 24-hour marathon of the group's music, culminating in a live set at the Greene Space.
• March 25: Cantaloupe Music releases Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche's Adventureland, featuring Kronos in Kotche's Anomaly for string quartet, percussion, and electronics.
• March 28 (8 pm): Kronos plays a stellar 40th-anniversary show in Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, with guest appearances by Bryce Dessner, Wu Man, Jherek Bischoff, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, musicians from Face the Music, and a short film by Sam Green.
• March 30: Boosey & Hawkes issues The Kronos Collection, Volume 2, six Kronos-commissioned arrangements by Osvaldo Golijov of works originating from Argentina, Cuba, Hungary, Mexico, and Portugal.
• April 6 (7 pm): at Cal Performances in Berkeley, Kronos performs the world premiere of Beyond Zero: 1914-1918, a work for string quartet and film by composer Aleksandra Vrebalov and filmmaker Bill Morrison, marking the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.
• April 8: Nonesuch releases Kronos Explorer Series and A Thousand Thoughts.

Looking ahead, the group plays Katowice, Poland (5/2), Paris (5/5), Stockholm (5/9), Cork (5/11), and four concerts in London (5/13 - 18). You'll find info on those events and much more at www.kronosquartet.org. Also notable: the premiere of Programma V, a collaboration between Philip Glass, Kronos, and Nederlands Dans Theater at the Holland Festival, June 7 - 9.

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