Kronos Quartet Adds Second Performance, 3/7

Having sold out its first Ecstatic Music Festival show at WNYC's Greene Space on Tuesday, March 7 (7:30 pm), Kronos Quartet has just added a second performance at 9:30 pm that evening, featuring additional new selections from Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. The education and legacy project is commissioning - and distributing for free - the first learning library of contemporary repertoire for string quartet.

Presented by Q2 Music, the 9:30 program includes a short excerpt from Laurie Anderson's upcoming, as-yet-untitled Fifty for the Future piece, plus pieces by Garth Knox,Fodé Lassana Diabaté, Kala Ramnath, and Soo Yeon Lyuh, who joins Kronos on stage on the haegeum, a traditional Korean string instrument.

Kaufman Music Center's Face the Music, the acclaimed youth ensemble called "a force in the New York new-music world" by The New York Times, opens the show with a work by Aleksandra Vrebalov, also composed for Kronos's Fifty for the Future. Hosted by Q2 Music's Helga Davis, the evening is a rare opportunity to hear the renowned ensemble in such an intimate setting.

The Greene Space is located at 44 Charlton St. in Manhattan. Tickets are $40 (general admission), available through www.thegreenespace.org.

Coming up on Saturday, April 1, Kronos Quartet will appear at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House in A Nonesuch Celebration, as part of a stellar lineup of musical luminaries that includes k.d. lang, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Thile, Dawn Upshaw, Stephin Merritt, Caetano Veloso, and others. The program is a tribute to Bob Hurwitz, who for the past three decades has served as the visionary architect of Nonesuch Records, affectionately referred to as "the label without labels." Watch this space for further details.