To celebrate some of the most bizarre animals on the planet (as well as some of the most bizarre musical instruments), Hearst has devised Songs For Unusual Creatures. The album consists of instrumental songs inspired by such beastly oddities as the aye-aye, the magnapinna squid, the blobfish, the elephant shrew, and the blue-footed booby. Instruments include daxophone, theremin, claviola, and stylophone. In addition to Kronos, guest musicians include Margaret Leng Tan, the LEMUR robots, Wade Schuman, and Cecilia Brauer, among others.

Listen to Aye-Aye and purchase the album here.

The quartet kicks things off this weekend at home in San Francisco with Women’s Voices (May 11 & 12), a program featuring the artistic voices of several contemporary women composers and performers. The performances feature the world premiere of All Clear written and performed by multi-instrumentalist, singer, and composer Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, as well as Derek Charke’s Tundra Songs featuring Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq.

After that, Kronos heads to Europe for the first of two trips this summer. The tour begins in Amsterdam (May 18), followed by a performance in Rotterdam (May 19), where Hanna Kulenty’s String Quartet No. 5 receives its world premiere. Next Kronos joins Philip Glass and Michael Riesman for six performances of Dracula, featuring Glass’ original score for the 1931 horror film classic Dracula (starring Bela Lugosi) performed with the film. The performances take place in Paris (May 21 & 22), Grenoble (May 23), Glasgow (May 25), Cardiff (May 27), and Birmingham (May 29.) Kronos’ tour wraps up in Stockholm - where the quartet returns for the first time since receiving the Polar Music Prize last summer - with the world premiere of ReFrag by Hurdy Gurdy (June 3.)

In July the quartet returns to the UK for several Cultural Olympiad performances. The tour begins in Glasgow (July 15) with an outdoor performance celebrating the ten-year anniversary of Terry Riley’s Sun Rings  - a multimedia work for string quartet, chorus and pre-recorded spacescapes - which takes place at the new Riverside Museum. The BT River of Music Festival in London (July 21 & 22) is the next stop, for two outdoor performances with several special guests. BT River of Music welcomes the world to London with a once-in-a-lifetime weekend of free music at landmarks along the River Thames, the weekend before the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Kronos performs on the Asia stage twice - first with with Homayun Sakhi and Salar Nader (July 21), followed by a performance with Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ (July 22).

Capping off Kronos’ time in London is the group’s debut at BBC Proms (July 24)! Kronos is looking forward to the special late-night performance, featuring the world premiere of Nicole Lizée’s The Golden Age of the Radiophonic Workshop (Fibre-Optic Flowers), as well as music by Omar Souleyman, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Aleksandra Vrebalov.

Learn more, purchase tickets, and see our full tour schedule here.

Võ is an Emmy award-winning composer noted for her mastery of various Vietnamese folk instruments. Born in Vietnam, Võ resides in the Bay Area, and has devoted her career to collaborating with musicians across different music genres to create new works, bringing Vietnamese traditional music to a wider audience. The Kronos Performing Arts Association together with YBCA and the David Harrington Research & Development Fund commissioned Võ to write All Clear, a work about war in five parts, which will include Võ on đàn Tranh, đàn Bầu, k’ni, artillery gongs, and vocals.

Also receiving its world premiere is Mosaic (from music of Delia Derbyshire): in memory of Connie Sterne, arranged from themes by Derbyshire. Born in Coventry, England, Derbyshire’s career in music developed in tandem with the rise of electronic music in the early 1960s. Part of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Derbyshire is best known for her electronic realization of Ron Grainer’s theme music to the British science fiction television series, Doctor Who. She is frequently mentioned, credited and covered by bands from Add N to (X) and Sonic Boom to Aphex Twin and The Chemical Brothers. Arranged by composer and “general noise-maker” Danny Clay with David Harrington, Mosaic presents a multi-layered portrait of Derbyshire that celebrates her imagination.

Three additional Bay Area premieres round out the program: Nicole Lizée’s Death to Kosmische, which pays homage to German experimental electronic music of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s; an arrangement of Laurie Anderson’s Flow, the original version of which was nominated for a 2011 Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental; and Derek Charke’s Tundra Songs featuring a performance by Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq.

The Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts entered into a multi-year partnership in the fall of 2010 in which YBCA would be Kronos’ exclusive San Francisco home for concerts and experimentation for three seasons, including co-produced performances and co-commissioned new works.

Learn more about Women’s Voices and purchase tickets here.

Eiko & Koma’s multi-year Retrospective Project is an evolving examination of the pair’s collaboration of four decades. “The goal of the Retrospective Project,” says Koma, “is not to look back and summarize the past, but within the eternal present to discover ways we can move forward as artists.”  Since 2009 the pair has been touring Retrospective Project in varying incarnations. The project includes video documentaries, several pieces from their repertoire, as well as two new performance works, Raven and Water, and two living installations, Naked and Fragile.

In Fragile, to be presented March 15-17, Eiko & Koma and Kronos Quartet create an intimate performance work, half stage piece and half living installation, that viewers are invited to experience from multiple viewpoints. Fragile allows attendees to stay as long or as short as they wish in unaccustomed proximity to the performers, or remain seated tentatively on the periphery. 

David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet is conceiving the musical setting for Fragile, drawing on different pieces from its nearly four-decade long repertoire that vary each time the installation is performed.  “Fragile reflects on the ideas of nakedness and fragility in a way which has been powerfully moving for me as a musician,” says Harrington.  “Eiko and Koma’s bodies become metaphors for the universal, fragile nakedness we try to hide. Their bare skin and awesome, slow movements become a story of communal privacy. To me this is the precise area where music is most alive.”

Fragile builds on the successful multi-year partnership launched between YBCA and Kronos in 2010. Since then, Kronos and YBCA have co-produced performances each season, and have co-commissioned three new works. Works presented have included George Crumb’s Black Angels, the world premiere of Sahba Aminikia’s String Quartet no. 3, A Threnody for Those Who Remain, and A Chinese Home with guest performer Wu Man. In addition to Fragile, Kronos will present Women’s Voices May 11-12, 2012, featuring guest vocalist Tanya Tagaq and the world premiere of YBCA and the Kronos Quartet’s co-commission, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ’s All Clear.

The second week of Eiko & Koma’s residency is devoted to a performance of three iconic works from their repertoire, together titled Regeneration. The evening begins with their latest stage work, Raven (2010), a haunting duet that unfolds on scorched canvas strewn with black feathers, and ends with a distilled version of White Dance (1976), the first piece they made together and their first to be shown in America. In between they reprise Night Tide (1984), a jewel-like example of the way body and landscape blend. The dance was inspired by the story of two mountains who make love in the middle of the night and have to return home before morning light.

The influence Eiko & Koma have had on Bay Area art of the last several decades cannot easily be measured, and their Retrospective Project testifies to the indelible impression they have left.  Starting in the late 70s, Eiko & Koma made San Francisco their second home for a few months each year, presenting a total of 11 programs consisting of 14 works in 12 different venues, and collaborating with a wide swathe of Bay Area artists including Joseph Krysiak, Irene and Paul Oppenheim, Patty Ann Farrell, Kazu Yanagi, Bob Carroll, George Coates, Chanticleer, Joseph Jennings, Kronos Quartet, Anna Halprin, and Joan Jeanrenaud. 

Learn more and purchase tickets here.

The album includes three works written or rescored for Kronos by the contemporary Russian composer Vladimir Martynov: The Beatitudes (1998, rescored for Kronos, 2006), Schubert-Quintet (Unfinished) (2009), and Der Abschied (2006).

Born in Moscow in 1946, Martynov was the son of a well-known musicologist and writer. He studied music from a young age and attended the Conservatory before expanding his musical pursuits beyond the traditional classical canon and into folk songs, early music, avant-garde, rock, and electronic music. In 1979, he entered the Spiritual Academy at the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, where he worked on preserving and restoring traditional Russian Orthodox chant. He returned to composition in the 1990s with a new style that combined the traditions of American minimalism with the repetitive chant of Russian Orthodoxy.

David Harrington says Martynov’s music “straddles various points of musical history and time; the music seems to me to reflect and absorb humanity in such a beautiful way.” As Greg Dubinsky writes in the liner notes, Martynov explores the “perspective of the Orthodox Church’s hermetic, ascetic tradition of insight and ecstasy achieved through ceaseless prayer…In this uninterrupted circular motion, time lacks beginning or end. Through the insistent repetition of a single formula, the mind blocks out the external world…His goal is to create a music that maintains this pose of enraptured contemplation for as long as possible.” Kronos Quartet has commissioned five works from Martynov, three of which are on this new album.

Kronos requested the arrangement of The Beatitudes (originally written as a choral piece) to close its live-performance program Awakening, which reflects on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Harrington calls the piece “one of the great works of faith in our repertoire.”

Schubert–Quintet (Unfinished) draws from Schubert’s String Quartet in C Major, using its instrumentation of double cellos, which fulfilled Kronos’ request for a piece reuniting them with Joan Jeanrenaud. The Quartet’s cellist for 20 years beginning in 1978, Jeanrenaud had not played with the group since 1998 before this recording. She will join them for a performance of Schubert–Quintet (Unfinished) on February 28 at Carnegie Hall.

In Der Abschied (The Farewell), which Martynov wrote as a memorial to his father, the composer uses musical repetition to conjure his late father’s labored last breaths. This piece’s musical “mantra” is from Mahler’s Das Lied Von Der Erde (Songs of the Earth), leading Harrington to call it “the string quartet Mahler never wrote.”

Music of Vladimir Martynov is available to order now on Kronos’ website, including copies signed by Kronos and Joan Jeanreneaud. Listen to the full album, streaming on our website through January 19.

The residency begins on January 21 with two quartet master classes with Junior Guildhall musicians. It continues on January 22 with Kronos Lab, a three day workshop in which four emerging quartets are given the chance to explore contemporary repertoire with the members of Kronos. There will also be discussions around the rehearsal process, the art of collaboration, and building audiences. On January 25, a Kronos Talk event, open to the public, gives audiences a chance to discuss our approach to collaborating and commissioning, working with composers, and the process of rehearsing a new work.

Each of the three concerts between January 24 and 27 takes place in a different venue. The first concert, Made in America, on January 24 at Hackney Empire, features works by American composers, including Bryce Dessner’s Aheym, the European premiere of Tyondai Braxton’s Uffe’s Woodshop, and London premieres by Terry Riley and Michael Gordon. The second concert takes place on January 26 at the Barbican and is entitled Awakening: A Musical Meditation on the Anniversary of 9/11. It is the UK premiere of a special program created in 2006 to respond to the fifth anniversary of the events of 9/11. The third concert, Early Music, takes place on January 27 at Wilton’s Music Hall, and features the world premiere of String Quartet No. 3 by Valentin Silvestrov. (The Early Music event is sold out but tickets are still available for Made in America and Awakening.)

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Barbican’s website.

Watch David talk about the history of the project and the selection process:

Born in Moscow in 1946, Martynov was the son of a well-known musicologist and writer. He studied music from a young age and attended the Conservatory before expanding his musical pursuits beyond the traditional classical canon and into folk songs, early music, avant-garde, rock, and electronic music. In 1979, he entered the Spiritual Academy at the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, where he worked on preserving and restoring traditional Russian Orthodox chant. He returned to composition in the 1990s with a new style that combined the traditions of American minimalism with the repetitive chant of Russian Orthodoxy.

As Greg Dubinsky writes in the liner notes, Martynov explores the “perspective of the Orthodox Church’s hermetic, ascetic tradition of insight and ecstasy achieved through ceaseless prayer…In this uninterrupted circular motion, time lacks beginning or end. Through the insistent repetition of a single formula, the mind blocks out the external world…His goal is to create a music that maintains this pose of enraptured contemplation for as long as possible.” Kronos Quartet has commissioned five works from Martynov, three of which are on this new album.

Kronos requested the arrangement of The Beatitudes (originally written as a choral piece) to close its live-performance program Awakening, which reflects on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Harrington calls the piece “one of the great works of faith in our repertoire.”

Schubert–Quintet (Unfinished) draws from Schubert’s String Quartet in C Major, using its instrumentation of double cellos, which fulfilled Kronos’ request for a piece reuniting them with Joan Jeanrenaud. The Quartet’s cellist for 20 years beginning in 1978, Jeanrenaud had not played with the group since 1998 before this recording. She will join them for a performance of Schubert–Quintet (Unfinished) on February 28 at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.

In Der Abschied (The Farewell), which Martyov wrote as a memorial to his father, the composer uses musical repetition to conjure his late father’s labored last breaths. This piece’s musical “mantra” is from Mahler’s Das Lied Von Der Erde (Songs of the Earth), leading Harrington to call it “the string quartet Mahler never wrote.”

Music of Vladimir Martynov is available for pre-order now on Kronos’ website, including copies signed by Kronos and Joan Jeanreneaud.

Written by Quin, a sound designer, naturalist, public radio commentator, educator, and music composer who has been hailed as the “Audubon of Audio” by the Washington Post, Polar Suite integrates the sounds of traditional instruments processed with captured sounds all controlled by movements of Keith McMillen Instruments’ K-Bow. K-Bow is a Kevlar and graphite bow that integrates sensors and CPUs with the feel of a traditional violin bow. Polar Suite brings together violin, viola, cello, digitally processed samples and interactive electronics controlled by the K-Bow.

In developing this new work, Kronos Quartet founder David Harrington commented, “this is an opportunity to essentially relearn our instruments and to transform how we approach live performance. Polar Suite is a very different kind of string quartet and an extraordinary sonic adventure—thanks in large part to the K-bow and what is now possible.”

Keith McMillen has been a pioneer in electronic and computer music for over 30 years. His instruments and inventions have been used by artists like Laurie Anderson, Grateful Dead, and Led Zeppelin. He invented the first programmable audio mixer and the Zeta violin, the gold standard for electric stringed instruments.

“Working with Kronos is the culmination of five years refining K-Bow. Douglas Quin’s demanding need for rapidly changing timbres and the incredible insights Kronos has into sound and beauty helps push technology to a level where it becomes secondary to the music it creates. New instruments should enable truly original music. When an instrument excels and merges with a great performer, an experience exceeding both can be achieved,” says McMillen, who has hand-made over 100 sensor bows to finally satisfy these demands.

Composer Douglas Quin said, “K-bow is an extraordinary and visionary invention in every sense. Keith’s passion for strings shines through in the detail and elegance of the bow’s design: packing in as much technology and punch as possible without losing sight of the feel of a traditional bow. As a composer the possibilities are endless and I finally have an opportunity to create what I have been conceiving in my mind’s ear.”

Douglas Quin’s Polar Suite premieres at Setnor Auditorium at Syracuse University, College of Visual and Performing Arts on November 9, 2011 at 8pm, as part of Kronos’ weeklong residency. Learn more about the performance here. Learn more about K-Bow here.

WTC 9/11 reflects on the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001, when Reich and his family lived only four blocks away from the site of the tragedy. “On 9/11 we were in Vermont, but our son, granddaughter, and daughter-in-law were all in our apartment. Our phone connection stayed open for six hours and our next-door neighbors were finally able to drive north out of the city with their family and ours. For us, 9/11 was not a media event,” says Reich.

The piece is scored for three string quartets, all recorded by Kronos. WTC 9/11 also uses pre-recorded voices, with the speakers’ final vowels and consonants elongated in a stop-motion sound technique that Reich says is the “means of connecting one person to another—harmonically.” The voices and their texts belong to NORAD air traffic controllers, as they raised the alert that the airplanes were off course; FDNY workers on the scene; friends and former neighbors of the Reichs, recalling that day; and women who kept vigil, or Shmira, over the dead in a tent outside the Medical Examiner’s office, reading Psalms or Biblical passages.

The relationship between Steve Reich and Kronos Quartet spans more than 20 years. This is the third quartet the composer has written for Kronos. Upcoming performances of WTC 9/11 include Cal Performances in Berkeley, CA (Oct 9), Melbourne Festival (Oct 19), The Glaser Center in Santa Rosa, CA (Dec 2), Cité de la musique in Paris (Jan 18), and more. See the full list here.

WTC 9/11 was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by the Barbican/London, Carnegie Hall, Duke Performances/Duke University, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. This commission was also made possible by the Chamber Music America Commissioning Program, with funding generously provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund. Kronos’ recording of Tusen Tankar was made possible by the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.

Buy the album digitally - including bonus track Tusen Tankar - here. CDs are available from Nonesuch and Amazon. Learn more about the piece here.