On Tuesday, March 10, Centrediscs, the label of the Canadian Music Centre, releases Tundra Songs, featuring Kronos Quartet in a trio of works by Canadian composer Derek Charke. Guest artist Tanya Tagaq, the charismatic Polaris Prize-winning Inuit throat singer, appears on the 30-minute title track, which David Harrington, Artistic Director of Kronos, describes as “really one of the major, spectacular pieces that has ever been written for Kronos.” The disc also includes Cercle du Nord III which, like Tundra Songs, incorporates environmental sounds from northern Canada; and four of Charke’s series of Inuit Throat Song Games. All of these pieces were commissioned and premiered by the Kronos Quartet to critical acclaim in North America and Europe.

The Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association is pleased to announce an exciting new commissioning initiative – Fifty 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 – ten per year for five years – devoted to the most recent approaches to the string quartet, designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals. The works will be commissioned from an eclectic group of composers – 25 men and 25 women – and the collection will represent the truly globe-spanning state of the art of the string quartet in the 21st century.