Kronos Quartet

Kronos Quartet
from left, Sherba, Zeigler, Harrington, and Dutt in 2006 (in front of San Francisco's Castro Theatre)
Background information
Origin	San Francisco, California, United States
Genre(s)	Contemporary classical
Occupation(s)	Chamber ensemble
Years active	1973-present
Label(s)	Nonesuch
Website	www.KronosQuartet.org
Members
David Harrington, violin John Sherba, violin Hank Dutt, viola Jeffrey Zeigler, cello
Former members
Joan Jeanrenaud, cello Jennifer Culp, cello Walter Gray, cello

Kronos Quartet performing in Warsaw, Poland in the summer of 2006.

Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973. 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. Jennifer Culp replaced Jeanrenaud in 1999, and Jeffrey Zeigler in turn replaced Culp in 2005.

New music

Kronos specializes in new music and has a long history of commissioning new works. In fact, over 600 works have been created for the Kronos Quartet. They have worked with many minimalist composers including Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Roberto Carnevale, Terry Riley and Kevin Volans. Kronos has collaborated with composers from a diversity of countries such as Franghiz Ali-Zadeh from Azerbaijan and Osvaldo Golijov from Argentina. Golijov is a MacArthur Fellow who has done compositions and arrangements for Kronos CDs such as Caravan and Nuevo. Recently, the Kronos Quartet began a commission process for composers under the age of 30, in the hope of bringing some of the talented young composers of our day to light.

Diverse genres

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 even 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". Composers aside, Kronos has teamed up with artists from around the world, including Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle; Mexican-American painter Gronk; the American soprano Dawn Upshaw; jazz composer/performer Pat Metheny; Mexican rockers Café Tacuba; and the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks. Kronos has performed live with the likes of the late poet Allen Ginsberg, Astor Piazzolla, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Tom Waits, David Bowie, and Björk, and has appeared on recordings with such diverse talents as singer-songwriters Dave Matthews, Nelly Furtado, Rokia Traore, Joan Armatrading, Brazilian electronica artist Amon Tobin, Texas yodeler Don Walser, Faith No More, Tiger Lillies and David Grisman. Most recently, Kronos appears on Nine Inch Nails' latest remix album, Year Zero Remixed, released November 20, 2007.

Awards and recognition

Le Diapason d'Or de Mai

• 1997 Osvaldo Golijov's The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind

Rolf Schock Prize

• 1999 Royal Swedish Academy of Music for Musical Arts in Music

Musical America

• 2003 Musicians of the Year^[1]

Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance

• 2004 Alban Berg: Lyric Suite

National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences

• 2005 The Recording Academy President's Merit Award

Quotation

"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 whole story with grace and humor and depth. And to tell the whole story, if possible."

– David Harrington

Recordings

Music DVD

• In Accord (1998)
• Kronos On Stage (2002)

References

External links

• Kronos Quartet Official website
• Kronos Quartet at All Music Guide
• Interview with founding Kronos member David Harrington