Kronos Quartet
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The 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 (1978–1999) had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola and Joan Jeanrenaud on cello. Jennifer Culp replaced Jeanrenaud on cello in 1999. Jeffrey Zeigler replaced Culp on cello in 2005.
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. Recently, the Kronos Quartet begun a commission process exclusively for composers under the age of 30, in hopes to bring some of the talented young composers of our day to light. They have worked with many minimalist composers including Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley and Kevin Volans. Their work covers a very broad range of musical genres: Mexican folk, experimental, pre-classical early music, movie soundtracks (Requiem for a Dream), jazz and tango. Kronos has even recorded adaptations of Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze", Television's "Marquee Moon", and Raymond Scott's "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals".
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Awards and recognitions
Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance:
- The Kronos Quartet & Dawn Upshaw for Berg: Lyric Suite (2004)
- Schock Prize for Musical Arts (1999)
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
Albums
- Kronos Quartet Plays Music of Thelonious Monk (1985)
- Mishima: Soundtrack composed by Philip Glass (1985)
- Kronos Quartet (1986), with music of Peter Sculthorpe, Aulis Sallinen, Philip Glass, Conlon Nancarrow and an arrangement of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze.
- Music of Bill Evans (1986)
- White Man Sleeps (1987)
- Terry Riley: Cadenza on the Night Plain (1988)
- Kronos Quartet Plays Terry Riley: Salome Dances for Peace (1989)
- Steve Reich: Different Trains (1989)
- Black Angels (including George Crumb's Black Angels) (1990)
- Witold Lutosławski: String Quartet (1991)
- Kevin Volans: Hunting:Gathering (1991)
- Five Tango Sensations (with Astor Piazzolla) (1991)
- Henryk Górecki: Already It Is Dusk (1991)
- Pieces of Africa (1992) (music by seven African composers)
- Short Stories (1993)
- Henryk Górecki: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 (1993)
- Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet (1993) (with pianist Aki Takahashi)
- At the Grave of Richard Wagner (1993)
- Bob Ostertag: All the Rage (1993)
- Night Prayers (1994)
- Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass (1995)
- Released: 1985-1995 (1995)
- Howl, USA (Allen Ginsberg's poem set to music, as well as other Cold War pieces) (1996)
- Osvaldo Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind (1997)
- Tan Dun: Ghost Opera (1997)
- Early Music (1997)
- Kronos Quartet Performs Alfred Schnittke: The Complete String Quartets (1998)
- John Adams: John's Book of Alleged Dances (1998)
- Kronos Quartet: 25 Years (10 disks)
- Dracula (Soundtrack by Philip Glass) (1999)
- Requiem for a Dream (Soundtrack by Clint Mansell) (2000)
- Caravan (2000) (with guest artists: Zakir Hussain, Taraf de Haidouks, Kayhan Kalhor, Ziya Tabbassian, Ali Jihad Racy, Souhail Kaspar, Martyn Jones)
- Steve Reich: Triple Quartet (2001)
- Terry Riley: Requiem for Adam (2001)
- Nuevo (music of Mexican composers) (2002)
- Alban Berg: Lyric Suite (2003) (Grammy Award Winner)
- Harry Partch: U.S. Highball (2003)
- Peteris Vasks: String Quartet No. 4 (2003)
- Mugam Sayagi: Music of Franghiz Ali-Zadeh (2005)
- You've Stolen My Heart by Kronos Quartet, Asha Bhosle (Released August 2005), a tribute to Rahul Dev Burman.
