Kronos Festival to Present 10 World Premieres and 8 Free Online Events

After a year's hiatus, Kronos Performing Arts Association's KRONOS FESTIVAL returns on June 11 - 18, expanding the annual San Francisco-based event into the virtual sphere with eight exciting online presentations, including ten world premieres. All streams will be available free of charge, and will remain online for three months. Streaming details are available at kronosquartet.org/kronos-festival-2021/.

KRONOS FESTIVAL features works by more than 20 guest performers, and highlights the work of Kronos' artistic collaborators and community partners. Art, activism, and the fight for civil rights are key themes in Kronos' works, represented at the festival in pieces by Sahba Aminikia, John Coltrane, Nicole Lizée, Bill Morrison, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Eiko Otake, Pete Seeger, Valerie Soe, Vân-Ánh Võ, and Zachary James Watkins.

Many of Kronos' signature works are featured, including Clint Mansell's 'Lux Aeterna' from Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, 'God-music' from George Crumb's Black Angels, Frank Zappa's None of the Above, Terry Riley's 'One Earth, One People, One Love' and Vladimir Martynov's The Beatitudes. Also featured are eight pieces that were commissioned as part of Kronos' groundbreaking Fifty for the Future project. And in a beautiful tribute to its hometown of San Francisco, Kronos will headline composer Ellen Reid's acclaimed SOUNDWALK, a self-guided, GPS-enabled public art work, which will make its Bay Area debut in Golden Gate Park (June 12).

The ten world premieres include compositions by Sahba Aminikia, Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, Nicole Lizée, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Mahsa Vahdat, and Vân-Ánh Võ.

Along with three 45-minute concerts (June 11, 16, and 18), this year's festival features KRONOS FESTIVAL Kids!, a lively and engaging 30-minute presentation for audiences of all ages (June 13).

Kronos has achieved lasting renown for transforming the string quartet concert into an immersive experience with lighting, video, audience participation, and more. In similar fashion, KRONOS FESTIVAL's programs stand apart from the usual music streams. Rather than capturing a continuous concert, each program is a mosaic of original films and performances. Kronos will present short films between June 13 - 17, with contributions from such noted filmmakers as Sam Green (a world premiere), Bill Morrison, and Valerie Soe, constituting a mini-festival within the festival. The programs will also feature new short films from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, created to illuminate and contextualize specific musical works.

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