KRONOS presents a free library of fifty contemporary works designed to guide string quartets in developing and honing the skills required for the performance of 21st-century repertoire.
String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam (SQBA) celebrates Kronos 50 for the Future by presenting all fifty works in one weekend: Kronos opens and closes the festival, and is joined by 9 other extraordinary quartets to perform the entire repertoire.
Quartet Satz
Philip Glass
USA
Solemn, measured and inexorable as the tides, the sweeping piece distills the rhythmic and emotional currents that have woven Glass’s music into our consciousness."
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Maduswara
Peni Candra Rini
Indonesia
Maduswara was written to encourage this generation of pesindhen to realize their duty as the conveyor of the universal values of life because, whether they are aware or not, these artists shape the spirit of the nation.”
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Sixfivetwo
Henry Threadgill
USA
Everything is about exploration. We get to where we are because of exploration. That's why improvisation is so important… We won't improve anything unless we have an improvisational approach to life.”
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What's great about 50 for the Future is that, not only are the scores easily available, but we also put up our own recordings so you can hear how it might sound, we interview the composers; if there's an extended technique, we or the composer will demonstrate how it's done. If I had had this resource when I was 18, the scores I nervously put back on the shelf would have been on my music stand, and I would have been playing them."
Composer Kala Ramnath demonstrates key techniques in "Amrit," her piece for Kronos' Fifty for the Future.
What would happen if we could, through our years of working with hundreds of composers from many places, make a body of incredibly interesting, fun music that could serve the next generation as a launching pad to a world of discovery?”
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