News

Kronos Performing Arts Association, Ragazze Quartet, and String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam present Kronos' 50 for the Future Weekend! For the first time ever, hear all 50 pieces performed in one weekend - this May 6 & 7, 2023 at the Muziekgebouw and Bimhuis in Amsterdam.

Kronos Quartet hosts its annual hometown festival, showcasing pieces from the Kronos Fifty for the Future repertoire, and featuring performances by three guest quartets—Aizuri Quartet, Attacca Quartet, and Friction Quartet—and appearances by guest musicians Rafiq Bhatia, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Victoria Shen, and more.

OUT TODAY: Free scores, parts, and more are now available for works composed by Sky Macklay, Aruna Narayan, and Terry Riley!

OUT TODAY: Free scores, parts, and more are now available for works composed by Rafiq Bhatia, Peni Candra Rini, Bryce Dessner, inti figgis-vizueta, Barry Guy, Angélique Kidjo, and Paul Wiancko.

OUT TODAY: Free scores, parts, and more are now available for works composed by Alexandra du Bois, Tod Machover, Missy Mazzoli, Misato Mochizuki, and Charlton Singleton.

AVAILABLE NOW! Five new string quartets from Kronos’ 50 for the Future, composed by Mark Applebaum, Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, Susie Ibarra, Vladimir Martynov, and Henry Threadgill.

AVAILABLE NOW! Five new string quartets from Kronos’ 50 for the Future, composed by Mark Applebaum, Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, Susie Ibarra, Vladimir Martynov, and Henry Threadgill.

The past two weeks have been unlike any Kronos has experienced in its 46-year history. We – David, John, Hank, Sunny, and the Kronos Performing Arts Association staff – are all safe, healthy, and “sheltering in place” in our homes in the San Francisco Bay Area. We know that everyone reading this message is impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and we send our most positive thoughts to you in this very difficult time.​

Watch Kronos collaborate with artists in Serbia for its first new work created in isolation, created by Fifty for the Future composer Aleksandra Vrebalov.

We are grateful to the California Arts Council for awarding the Kronos Performing Arts Association a Youth Arts Action grant, continuing its funding of Kronos Music: Remix, our collaborative education project with Sunset YOUTH Services.

Watch Kronos premiere "Marejada," Angélica Negrón's new work for 50 for the Future.

Newly released dance film "Diorama" features two works from Kronos' 50 for the Future.

The Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles presents a new digital program with Kronos and 50 for the future composer Soo Yeon Lyuh, featuring the world premiere of their latest collaboration, MOMENT 2020.

Oakland School for the Arts Chamber Orchestra performs Angélica Negrón's Marejada—our latest 50 for the Future release—over zoom.

This month, we're excited to be collaborating on three special 50 for the Future–focused educational concerts with the Exploratorium, Cal Performances, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music, as well as with student ensembles from several schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

We are thrilled to share that two of Kronos’ friends and collaborators—composer Reena Esmail (arranger for Kala Ramnath‘s and Zakir Hussain‘s Fifty for the Future pieces) and Year 4 composer Susie Ibarra —were recently named 2019 Unites States Artists Fellow in Music!

Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association is proud to announce the fifth and final group of composers to be commissioned for 50 for the Future: Mark Applebaum, Rafiq Bhatia, Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, Alexandra du Bois, Barry Guy, Angélique Kidjo, Sky Macklay, Aruna Narayan, Charlton Singleton, and Paul Wiancko.

Congratulations to 50 for the Future composer Nicole Lizée, who was awarded the 2019 Prix Opus for Composer of the Year!

Thank you to the Recording Academy for recognizing Landfall, Kronos’ Nonesuch Records album with Laurie Anderson (one of Kronos’ Fifty for the Future composers), with the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees.

When Kronos founder and artistic director David Harrington first began dabbling in chamber music as a teenager, there was no music by an Inuit throat singer for string quartet. There was no music by an African composer for string quartet, no sheet music from Asia or South America. Browsing the public library, he found that there was so much music that was missing from the repertoire. Kronos’ 50 for the Future—and indeed Kronos itself—was born out of a desire to fill in some of these blanks.

Kronos is pleased to present Kronos Festival 2019, its fifth annual, three-day music festival, at SFJAZZ Center on May 30–June 1, 2019. Kronos Festival 2019 will highlight the voices of singers, storytellers and activists, and will include premieres of 50 for the Future works by Mark Applebaum, Missy Mazzoli, and Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté.

AVAILABLE NOW! Five new string quartets from Kronos’ 50 for the Future, composed by Guillermo Galindo, Zakir Hussain, Jlin, Lu Yun, and Mario Galeano Toro.

“Congratulations to friend and colleague David Jones of Serious in London for being awarded an OBE [Officer of the Order of the British Empire] for services to ‘music and culture.’"

We are thrilled to be embarking on Kronos Music: Remix, a new collaborative project with Sunset YOUTH Services to support young music producers, engineers, and hip hop artists as they cut, combine, deconstruct, and sample our 50 for the Future recordings into new forms.

"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?"

We started our current tour in Port Townsend, Washington, where David coached students from Port Townsend High School on "At the Purchaser's Option with variations," which Rhiannon Giddens composed for 50 for the Future.

An evening of 50 for the Future works, reimagined for recorder ensemble.

Landfall, Kronos' and Laurie Anderson's collaborative album, drops tomorrow. Thanks to The Quietus for making Landfall album of the week!

We’ve been having a wonderful time working with student quartets at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music for the past two days during our CAP UCLA residency. They’ve surprised us more than once: collaborating with a tabla player to perform Kala Ramnath's Amrit, and reimagining Fodé Lassana Diabaté's Sunjata's Time by adding thumb piano and percussion!

Our recent collaborations with Laurie Anderson – “Landfall” on Nonesuch Records – and Trio Da Kali – “Ladilikan” on World Circuit Records – were featured on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross today.

Just ten days until Kronos Festival 2018 kicks off at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco on Thursday, April 26. We are already in rehearsals with Zakir Hussain and Guillermo Galindo, whose Fifty for the Future pieces will premiere at this year’s festival.

Kronos is in D.C. this week and looking forward to working with soldiers from the U.S. Army Strings on Wednesday. You can watch us (and Wu Man!) coach them on selected works from Kronos' 50 for the Future.

Kronos Performing Arts Association and Kronos Quartet are honored to announce that 50 for the Future will receive two National Endowment for the Arts' Art Works grants totaling $60,000.

AVAILABLE NOW! Five new string quartets from Kronos’ 50 for the Future, composed by Islam Chipsy, Aftab Darvishi, Philip Glass, Onutė Narbutaitė, and Yevgeniy Sharlat.

Kronos has been in residence at Esterházy Palace this week coaching the Rolston String Quartet and Esmé Quartet on 50 for the Future works. The young groups will open for Kronos later this week.

Tonight is the first of our final five performances of "Common Ground" with Alonzo King LINES Ballet at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, which features 50 for the Future works by Yotam Haber, Aleksander Kościów, Trey Spruance, and Merlijn Twaalfhoven.

This weekend, Songlines Magazine hosted its inaugural Songlines Music Awards ceremony at London’s Electric Brixton to celebrate the tenth annual distribution of the world music awards. Kronos is honored to have received the Fusion category award with Trio Da Kali for our collaborative album Ladilikan, released last year on World Circuit Records.

We could not be more thrilled to announce that the initial 15 open access string quartet scores and parts that we have commissioned and released online for FREE through Kronos’ 50 for the Future have been downloaded by musicians, students, composers, and music fans in 49 countries worldwide.

Composer Garth Knox recently sent us this video of the Taïga String Quartet (Louise Gorm, Isabelle Bania, Alice Vaz, and Maria Edlund) performing “Dimensions,” the third movement of his 50 for the Future string quartet Satellites.

Did you miss David Srebnik’s interview with Kronos’ artistic director, founder, and violinist David Harrington on SiriusXM Symphony Hall’s “Living American,” a weekly series devoted to living American composers, yesterday? You can catch it again on SiriusXM Radio Channel 76 (or stream online) on FRIDAY (July 14) at Midnight ET / 9PM PT, or Sunday (July 16) at 6PM ET / 3PM PT.

The Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association is pleased to announce an exciting new commissioning initiative—50 for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. Beginning in the 2015/16 season, Kronos’ Fifty for the Future will commission a collection of 50 new works from an eclectic group of composers—25 men and 25 women—to represent the truly globe-spanning state of the art of the string quartet in the 21st century.

Bay Area–based ensemble FIREBIRD performs the world premiere of In Plaster, a new piece by Yotam Haber, one of our 10 composers in this first year of 50 for the Future.

Kronos performs World Premiere of Aleksandra Vrebalov’s “The Sea Ranch Songs” at The Sea Ranch this weekend in honor of the coastal community’s 50th birthday. Vrebalov, one of our first 10 composers for Fifty for the Future, composed The Sea Ranch Songs for the Ranch’s revolutionary architecture and its surrounding landscape.

Fifty for the Future Legacy Partner Aga Khan Music Initiative has joined forces with the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland to present Kronos in concert with Mali’s Trio Da Kali for a musically adventurous collaboration. Longtime collaborators with Kronos, the trio includes Mamadou Kouyaté on bass ngoni, Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté on vocals, and Fodé Lassana Diabaté, one of our Fifty for the Future composers, on the 22-key balafon.

Kronos heads to Abu Dhabi to premiere the first two 50 for the Future commissions at the The Arts Center at New York University Abu Dhabi.

Kronos makes its Gulf Region debut and premieres the first two 50 for the Future commissions at the The Arts Center at New York University Abu Dhabi, where the group is now in residence (Sept 10-17).

Congratulations to Tanya Tagaq for her three wins last night at the BreakOut West Awards in Victoria, BC!

"Performing in Abu Dhabi for the first time, Kronos Quartet broke all these rules, and it was a singular joy to behold…one of the most commanding, compelling and contrasting evenings of music most in the audience will ever have experienced.”

Today on WNYC’s “New Sounds,” host John Schaefer presents a new episode, “Folk Meets Minimalism: Violin and Viola Edition,” featuring Garth Knox’s composition for three violas, Up, down, sideways, round.

A big congratulations to Washington Performing Arts, one of our 50 for the Future Legacy Partners, for their award for Outstanding Contribution to Arts Education!

Kronos has announced its first UK tour in several years in May. The group will perform in London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Manchester, and other locations with a program that includes three UK premieres of 50 for the Future pieces.