Fifty for the Future at Kronos Festival 2018

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. Works by 50FTF’s Islam Chipsy, Fodé Lassana Diabaté, Philip Glass, Rhiannon Giddens, Nicole Lizée, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Garth Knox, Yevgeniy Sharlat, and Aftab Darvishi will also be performed throughout the festival by Kronos, students from Ruth Asawa SOTA, and the Amaranth Quartet.

Tickets are going fast (opening night has already sold out!), so don’t wait to get your tickets. Learn more and reserve your seats >

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Two Fifty for the Future Composers on NPR’s Fresh AIr

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. Thank you to critic Milo Miles. Listen to the review here.

Laurie Anderson and Trio Da Kali’s Fodé Lassana Diabaté are both composers for Kronos’ Fifty for the Future. Scores, parts, recordings and more for Anderson’s and Diabaté‘s string quartets are available on our website free of charge.

Fifty for the Future at UCLA

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 Amrit by Kala Ramnath, and reimagining Sunjata’s Time by Fodé Lassana Diabaté by adding thumb piano and percussion!

If you’re in the area, come by UCLA Royce Hall today at 7:15PM to see the 50/50 Quartet, a UCLA student/alumni ensemble, play these selections (and more) from Kronos’ Fifty for the Future on the Terrace for free! Afterwards, we’ll perform My Lai: Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert and Vân-Ánh Võ at 8PM.

CAP UCLA is a Legacy Partner of Kronos’ Fifty for the Future.

Fifty for the Future on SiriusXM Symphony Hall’s “Living American”

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.

You’ll hear music composed for Kronos’ Fifty for the Future by Ken Benshoof, Wu Man, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Kala Ramnath, as well as a live version of Bryce Dessner’s Aheym, recorded in the SiriusXM Performance Theatre in Washington DC, “God Music” from George Crumb’s Black Angels, and “The Ecstasy” from Terry Riley’s Salome Dances for Peace.

Fifty for the Future on Classical KUSC

Two weeks ago, Kronos founder, violinist, and artistic director David Harrington spoke to Brian Lauritzen in Los Angeles at Classical KUSC about Kronos’ Fifty for the Future before a concert at LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Listen to the interview here (after a brief excerpt at the beginning of the 30-minute episode, the conversation continues at 16:16).

To listen to and download the scores for the works featured in the story (as well as others), please visit our project website: http://kronosquartet.org/fifty-for-the-future