Kronos Quartet
Encyclopedia
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet
founded by violin
ist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington
. 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
. In 1999, Joan Jeanrenaud left Kronos because she was "eager for something new"; she was replaced by Jennifer Culp who, in turn, left in 2005 and was replaced by Jeffrey Zeigler. With almost forty studio albums to their credit and having performed worldwide, they were called "probably the most famous 'new music
' group in the world" and were praised in philosophical studies of music for the inclusiveness of their repertoire.
By the time the quartet celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary, in 1999, they had a repertoire of over 600 works, which included 400 string quartets written for them, more than 3,000 performances, seven first-prize ASCAP awards, Edison Awards in classical and popular music, and had sold more than 1.5 million records.
new works. Over 600 works have been created for the Kronos Quartet. They have worked with many minimalist
composers including John Adams (composer), Arvo Pärt
, George Crumb
, Henryk Górecki
, Steve Reich
, Philip Glass
, Roberto Carnevale
, Terry Riley
, and Kevin Volans
; collaborators hail from a diversity of countries--Kaija Saariaho
from Finland, Pēteris Vasks
from Latvia
, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh
from Azerbaijan
, Roberto Paci Dalò
from Italy
, Jan W. Morthenson from Sweden, and Osvaldo Golijov
from Argentina
. Some of Kronos' string-quartet arrangements were published in 2007.
, Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley
, and the Montalvo Arts Center. The first recipient was Alexandra du Bois
(at the time a student at Indiana University
, later a Juilliard School
graduate), followed by Felipe Perez Santiago (born in Mexico in 1973), and Dan Visconti (born in Illinois in 1982); in 2007, Israeli composer Aviya Kopelman became the fourth.
, experimental
, pre-classical early music
, movie soundtracks (Requiem for a Dream
, Heat, The Fountain), jazz
and tango
. Kronos has also 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".
Kronos has also worked with a variety of global musicians, including Bollywood
playback singer
Asha Bhosle
; Mexican-American painter Gronk; American soprano
Dawn Upshaw
; jazz
composer/performer Pat Metheny
; Mexican
rockers
Café Tacuba; Azerbaijani
mugam singer Alim Qasimov
; and the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks among others.
Kronos has performed live with the poet Allen Ginsberg
, Ástor Piazzolla
, the Modern Jazz Quartet
, Tom Waits
, David Bowie
, and Björk
, and has appeared on recordings with such diverse artists as the Dave Matthews Band
, Nelly Furtado
, Rokia Traore
, Joan Armatrading
, Brazilian electronica
artist Amon Tobin
, Texas yodeler Don Walser
, Faith No More
, Tiger Lillies
and David Grisman
.
The quartet also performed on the 1998 Dave Matthews Band
album Before These Crowded Streets
on the tracks Halloween and The Stone. They also appeared on the Nine Inch Nails
remix album, Year Zero Remixed
, released November 20, 2007, doing a rendition of the track Another Version of the Truth. They also performed Lee Brooks
' score for the short film 2081
, based on the Kurt Vonnegut
short story "Harrison Bergeron
."
In 2009, the quartet contributed an acoustic version of Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night" for the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night
produced by the Red Hot Organization
.
Rolf Schock Prize
Musical America
Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
Polar Music Prize
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
founded by violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. The longest-running combination of performers (from 1978 to 1999) had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
, and Joan Jeanrenaud
Joan Jeanrenaud
Joan Jeanrenaud, née Dutcher , is an American cello player. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, she played with the Kronos Quartet from 1978 until 1999, when, after a sabbatical, she left to pursue a solo career and collaborations with other artists, in part due being diagnosed with multiple...
on cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
. In 1999, Joan Jeanrenaud left Kronos because she was "eager for something new"; she was replaced by Jennifer Culp who, in turn, left in 2005 and was replaced by Jeffrey Zeigler. With almost forty studio albums to their credit and having performed worldwide, they were called "probably the most famous 'new music
Contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...
' group in the world" and were praised in philosophical studies of music for the inclusiveness of their repertoire.
By the time the quartet celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary, in 1999, they had a repertoire of over 600 works, which included 400 string quartets written for them, more than 3,000 performances, seven first-prize ASCAP awards, Edison Awards in classical and popular music, and had sold more than 1.5 million records.
New music/Contemporary Classical
Kronos specializes in new music/contemporary classical music and has a long history of commissioningCommission (art)
In art, a commission is the hiring and payment for the creation of a piece, often on behalf of another.In classical music, ensembles often commission pieces from composers, where the ensemble secures the composer's payment from private or public organizations or donors.- Commissions for public art...
new works. Over 600 works have been created for the Kronos Quartet. They have worked with many minimalist
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
composers including John Adams (composer), Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
, George Crumb
George Crumb
George Crumb is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include seagull effect for the cello , metallic vibrato for the piano George Crumb (born...
, Henryk Górecki
Henryk Górecki
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki was a composer of contemporary classical music. He studied at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice between 1955 and 1960. In 1968, he joined the faculty and rose to provost before resigning in 1979. Górecki became a leading figure of the Polish avant-garde during...
, Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
, Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, Roberto Carnevale
Roberto Carnevale
Roberto Carnevale is an Italian composer, pianist and conductor.- Biography and career :Born in Catania, he started studying piano at the age of seven. He took a degree in Arts at the University of Catania and he attended the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena...
, Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, and Kevin Volans
Kevin Volans
Kevin Volans is a composer associated with the post-minimalist movement in contemporary composition. He was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa on July 6, 1949, and even though he has spent most of his life outside his native country, is the best known South African composer active today.In...
; collaborators hail from a diversity of countries--Kaija Saariaho
Kaija Saariaho
Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer.Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she has lived since 1982. Her studies and research at IRCAM have had a major influence on her music and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by...
from Finland, Pēteris Vasks
Peteris Vasks
Pēteris Vasks is a Latvian composer.Vasks was born in Aizpute, Latvia, into the family of a Baptist pastor. He trained as a violinist at the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music, as a double-bass player with Vitautas Sereikaan at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and played in several...
from Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh
Franghiz Ali-Zadeh
Franghiz Ali-Zadeh is an Azerbaijani composer and pianist, currently living in Germany. She is best known for her works which combine the musical tradition of the Azerbaijani mugam and 20th century Western compositional techniques, especially those of Arnold Schönberg and Gara Garayev...
from Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
, Roberto Paci Dalò
Roberto Paci Dalò
Roberto Paci Dalò is an Italian composer and musician, film and theatre director, visual artist.After musical, visual, and architectural studies in Fiesole, Faenza and Ravenna, in 1993 he has been recipient of the “Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD” Fellowship...
from Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Jan W. Morthenson from Sweden, and Osvaldo Golijov
Osvaldo Golijov
Osvaldo Noé Golijov is a Grammy award–winning composer of classical music.-Biography:Osvaldo Golijov was born in and grew up in La Plata, Argentina, in a Jewish family that had emigrated to Argentina in the 1920s from Romania and Russia.Golijov has developed a rich musical language, the result of...
from Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. Some of Kronos' string-quartet arrangements were published in 2007.
Under 30 Project
When Kronos turned 30, in 2003, they decided on a commissioning process for composers under the age of 30, in the hope of bringing some of the talented young composers to light. The program is now run in cooperation with Carnegie HallCarnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, and the Montalvo Arts Center. The first recipient was Alexandra du Bois
Alexandra du Bois
Alexandra du Bois is an American composer and violinist living in New York.-Biography:Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia in 1981, du Bois later moved to rural, south-eastern Virginia with her parents at the age thirteen...
(at the time a student at Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
, later a Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
graduate), followed by Felipe Perez Santiago (born in Mexico in 1973), and Dan Visconti (born in Illinois in 1982); in 2007, Israeli composer Aviya Kopelman became the fourth.
Diverse genres
Kronos covers a very broad range of musical genres: Mexican folkMusic of Mexico
The music of Mexico is very diverse and features a wide range of different musical styles. It has been influenced by a variety of cultures, most notably indigenous Mexican and European, since the Late Middle Ages...
, experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
, pre-classical early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
, movie soundtracks (Requiem for a Dream
Requiem for a Dream (soundtrack)
-Requiem for a Tower EP:#Requiem for a Tower, Movement 2#Requiem for a Tower, Movement 3#Requiem for a Tower, Movement 4-Remixed album:#Clint Mansell – Tappy's Intro – 0:51#Plant – In the End It's All Nice – 6:17...
, Heat, The Fountain), jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
. Kronos has also recorded adaptations of Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
's "Purple Haze
Purple Haze
"Purple Haze" is a song written in 1966 and recorded in 1967 by The Jimi Hendrix Experience and released as a single in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It appeared on their 1967 album Are You Experienced...
", Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with classicaland minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound, and frontman Jónsi Birgisson's falsetto vocals and use of bowed guitar. In January 2010, the band announced that they will be on hiatus. Since then, it has since been announced...
's "Flugufrelsarinn", Television
Television (band)
Television was an American rock band, formed in New York City in 1973. They are best known for the album Marquee Moon and widely regarded as one of the founders of "punk" and New Wave music. Television was part of the early 1970s New York underground rock scene, along with bands like the Patti...
's "Marquee Moon
Marquee Moon
Marquee Moon is the debut album by American rock band Television, released in 1977. While often considered a seminal work to come out of the New York punk scene of the late 1970s, the album differs from conventional punk in its clean, textured guitar-based arrangements and extended improvisation...
", and Raymond Scott
Raymond Scott
Raymond Scott was an American composer, band leader, pianist, engineer, recording studio maverick, and electronic instrument inventor....
's "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals".
Kronos has also worked with a variety of global musicians, including Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
playback singer
Playback singer
A playback singer is a singer whose singing is prerecorded for use in movies. Playback singers record songs for soundtracks, and actors or actresses lip-sync the songs for cameras, while the actual singer does not appear on screen.-South Asia:...
Asha Bhosle
Asha Bhosle
Asha Bhosle is an Indian singer. She is one of the best-known and most highly-regarded Hindi playback singers in India, although she has a wider repertoire. Bhosle's career started in 1943 and has spanned over six decades. She has done playback singing for over a thousand Bollywood movies...
; Mexican-American painter Gronk; American soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
Dawn Upshaw
Dawn Upshaw
Dawn Upshaw is an American soprano described as "one of the most consequential performers of our time" by the Los Angeles Times. The recipient of several Grammy Awards and Edison Prize-winning discs, Upshaw is at home both in opera and art song, and in repertoire from Baroque to contemporary...
; jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
composer/performer Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...
; Mexican
Mexican people
Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....
rockers
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
Café Tacuba; Azerbaijani
Azerbaijani people
The Azerbaijanis are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighbourhood states, Georgia, Russia and formerly Armenia. Commonly referred to as Azeris or Azerbaijani Turks , they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to...
mugam singer Alim Qasimov
Alim Qasimov
Alim Qasimov is an Azerbaijani musician, and one of the foremost mugam singers in Azerbaijan. He was awarded the International Music Council-UNESCO Music Prize in 1999, one of the highest international accolades for music. His music is characterised by his vocal improvisation and represents a move...
; and the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks among others.
Kronos has performed live with the poet Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...
, the Modern Jazz Quartet
Modern Jazz Quartet
The Modern Jazz Quartet was established in 1952 by Milt Jackson , John Lewis , Percy Heath , and Kenny Clarke . Connie Kay replaced Clarke in 1955...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, and Björk
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...
, and has appeared on recordings with such diverse artists as the Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...
, Nelly Furtado
Nelly Furtado
Nelly Kim Furtado is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. Furtado grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.Furtado first gained fame with her debut album, Whoa, Nelly!, and its single "I'm Like a Bird", which won a 2001 Juno Award for Single of the Year and a 2002 Grammy...
, Rokia Traore
Rokia Traoré
Rokia Traoré is a Victoires de la Musique award-winning Malian singer, songwriter and guitarist. Born in Mali as a member of the Bambara ethnic group, her father was a diplomat and she travelled widely in her youth. She visited such countries as Algeria, Saudi Arabia, France and Belgium and was...
, Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, MBE is a British singer, songwriter and guitarist. Armatrading is a three-time Grammy Award-nominee and has been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist...
, Brazilian electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
artist Amon Tobin
Amon Tobin
Amon Adonai Santos de Araújo Tobin , known as Amon Tobin, is a Brazilian musician, composer and producer of electronic music. He is described as a virtuoso sound designer and is considered to be one of the most influential electronic music artists in the world...
, Texas yodeler Don Walser
Don Walser
Donald Ray Walser was an American country music singer. He was known as a unique, award-winning yodeling "Texas country music legend."- Music career :...
, Faith No More
Faith No More
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed originally as Faith No Man in 1981 by bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist Wade Worthington, vocalist Michael Morris and drummer Mike Bordin. A year later when Worthington was replaced by keyboardist Roddy Bottum, and Mike...
, Tiger Lillies
Tiger Lillies
The Tiger Lillies are a three-piece band, formed in 1989 and based in London. They have toured worldwide and won acclaim with their opera Shockheaded Peter....
and David Grisman
David Grisman
David Grisman is an American bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. In the early 1990s, he started the Acoustic Disc record label in an effort to preserve and spread acoustic or instrumental music.-Biography:Grisman grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey...
.
The quartet also performed on the 1998 Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...
album Before These Crowded Streets
Before These Crowded Streets
Before These Crowded Streets is the third studio album by Dave Matthews Band, released on April 28, 1998. It is the last official album by the group to be produced by longtime producer Steve Lillywhite and their first album recorded at The Plant Recording Studios in Sausalito, California...
on the tracks Halloween and The Stone. They also appeared on the Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
remix album, Year Zero Remixed
Year Zero Remixed
-Vinyl:-Critical reception:Year Zero Remixed received generally positive reviews. Virgin Media's review described the album as "a real cornucopia of treats" and "Highly recommended." Pitchfork Media's review, however, criticized the album, writing that it "lacks cohesion and is predictably...
, released November 20, 2007, doing a rendition of the track Another Version of the Truth. They also performed Lee Brooks
Lee Brooks
Lee Raymond Brooks is a composer and sound designer for film.-Biography:Lee Brooks is a composer for stage, film and television...
' score for the short film 2081
2081 (film)
2081 is a 2009 science fiction short film, which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival on May 29, 2009. It is directed and written by Chandler Tuttle...
, based on the Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
short story "Harrison Bergeron
Harrison Bergeron
"Harrison Bergeron" is a satirical, dystopian science fiction short story written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and first published in October 1961. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the story was re-published in the author's collection Welcome to the Monkey House in...
."
In 2009, the quartet contributed an acoustic version of Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night" for the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night
Dark Was the Night
Dark Was the Night is the twentieth compilation release benefiting the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS...
produced by the Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization is a not-for-profit, 501 3, international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture.Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise...
.
Awards and recognition
Le Diapason d'Or de Mai- 1997 Osvaldo GolijovOsvaldo GolijovOsvaldo Noé Golijov is a Grammy award–winning composer of classical music.-Biography:Osvaldo Golijov was born in and grew up in La Plata, Argentina, in a Jewish family that had emigrated to Argentina in the 1920s from Romania and Russia.Golijov has developed a rich musical language, the result of...
'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
Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance
Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance has been awarded since 1959. The award has had several minor name changes:*From 1959 to 1960 the award was known as Best Classical Performance - Chamber Music ...
- 2004Grammy Awards of 2004The 46th Grammy Awards were held on the February 8, 2004. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year. The big winners were Outkast, who won three awards including Album of the Year & Beyoncé Knowles, who won 5 Awards...
Alban BergAlban BergAlban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
: Lyric Suite
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc., known variously as The Recording Academy or NARAS, is a U.S. organization of musicians, producers, recording engineers and other recording professionals dedicated to improving the quality of life and cultural condition for music and its...
- 2005 The Recording Academy President's Merit Award
Polar Music Prize
Polar Music Prize
The Polar Music Prize is a Swedish international music award founded in 1989 by Stig Anderson, possibly best known to be the manager of the Swedish pop group ABBA, with a donation to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music....
- 2011, the quartet was Laureates of The Polar Music Prize 2011 is being awarded to American string quartet Kronos Quartet. For almost 40 years, the Kronos Quartet has been revolutionizing the potential of the string quartet genre when it comes to both style and content. The same type of chamber music ensemble – two violins, a viola and a cello – for which Mozart and Beethoven wrote can also be used to comment on international politics, interpret avant-garde rock and incorporate music from every corner of the world
Films
- 1995 - Musical Outsiders: An American Legacy - Harry Partch, Lou Harrison, and Terry Riley. Directed by Michael Blackwood.
- 2000 - Requiem for a Dream Soundtrack by Clint Mansell featuring Kronos Quartet.
- 2006 - The Fountain Soundtrack by Clint Mansell featuring Kronos Quartet and Mogwai.
- 2009 - 2081. Directed by Chandler Tuttle.