Kronos FESTIVAL ARCHIVE: 2019
KRONOS PRESENTS
Kronos Festival 2019
May 30, May 31 and June 1, 2019
SFJAZZ Center
201 Franklin Street, San Francisco, California
Valérie Sainte-Agathe (San Francisco Girls Chorus), Artist-In-Residence
SCHEDULE
Opening Night
Kronos Quartet with Valérie Sainte-Agathe and guests Rebecca Solnit, Meklit, Michael Wayne Turner III, Lee Knight, and San Francisco Girls Chorus, as well as a special appearance by the Dragon String Quartet
Rhiannon Giddens (arr. Jacob Garchik) / At the Purchaser’s Option with variations *
Performed by Dragon String Quartet (Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts)
Mark Applebaum / Flashlight * World premiere
Jlin (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Little Black Book *
Voices of a People’s History
Introduced by Valérie Sainte-Agathe
Howard Zinn / “The Problem Is Civil Obedience”
Read by Rebecca Solnit
Marge Piercy / “The Low Road”
Read by Meklit
Pete Seeger / “Step by Step” from the American Miners’ Association Constitution
Read by Lee Knight
Martin Luther King, Jr. / Excerpts from “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” (Memphis, Tennessee, April 3, 1968) and “The American Dream” (Ebenezer Baptist Church, July 4, 1965)
Read by Michael Wayne Turner III
Michael Gordon / Exalted **
with San Francisco Girls Chorus, conducted by Valérie Sainte-Agathe
Fatimah Al-Zaelaeyah (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Ya Mun Dakhal Bahr Al-Hawa (Hey, Who Enters The Sea of Passion?) +
Missy Mazzoli / Enthusiasm Strategies * World premiere
Stacy Garrop / Glorious Mahalia ** Bay Area Premiere
I. Hold on
II. Stave in the ground
III. Are you being treated right
IV. Sometime I feel like a motherless child
V. This world will make you think
featuring the recorded voices of Mahalia Jackson and Studs Terkel
The Board of Directors of the Kronos Performing Arts Association is proud to help sponsor this performance.
Opening Night
Day 2
Kronos Quartet with Valérie Sainte-Agathe and guests CocoRosie, Jherek Bischoff, Sam Green, and San Francisco Girls Chorus, as well as a special appearance by the Dragon Saxophone Quintet
Fodé Lassana Diabaté (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Sunjata’s Time: V. Bara kala ta *
Performed by Dragon Saxophone Quintet (Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts)
Konono Nº1 (arr. Jherek Bischoff) / Kule Kule +
Sigur Rós (arr. Stephen Prutsman) / Flugufrelsarinn (The Fly Freer) +
KRONOS QUARTET AND COCOROSIE
Works to be announced
with CocoRosie
Bianca Casady and Sierra Casady, voices, percussion, toys, drum machine
featuring members of San Francisco Girls Chorus Premier Ensemble,
conducted by Valérie Sainte-Agathe
Sam Green / Por Vida!
Film by Sam Green
Music by Todd Griffin (arr. Jordi Garrell)
with Sam Green, live narration
KRONOS QUARTET AND JHEREK BISCHOFF
Jherek Bischoff / Compositions
A Semiperfect Number **
Flying Rivers **
Stranger ** US Premiere
with Jherek Bischoff, bass guitar
Genuine Article Pictures is proud to help sponsor this performance.
Opening Night
“Around the World with Kronos”
Kronos Quartet with Valérie Sainte-Agathe and guests Lee Knight and singers from the San Francisco Girls Chorus’ Bayview Chorus Program, as well as a special pre-show performance by SFGC’s Chorus School
EGYPT
Islam Chipsy (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Zaghlala *
INDIA
Vishnu Digambar Paluskar / Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram (inspired by Pete Seeger) +
SOUTH AFRICA
Solomon Linda (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Wimoweh (inspired by The Weavers) +
with Lee Knight
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Konono Nº1 (arr. Jherek Bischoff) / Kule Kule +
SESAME STREET
Pete Seeger (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Garbage +
with Lee Knight
CHINA
Wu Man (realized by Danny Clay) / Two Chinese Paintings: II. Traditional / Silk and Bamboo(inspired by Huanlege) +
YEMEN
Fatimah Al-Zaelaeyah (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Ya Mun Dakhal Bahr Al-Hawa +
SOMALIA
Dur-Dur Band (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Dooyo +
MALI
Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Tegere Tulon excerpt *
Andrea Abernethy Lunsford is proud to help sponsor this performance.
Opening Night
Day 3
Kronos Quartet with Valérie Sainte-Agathe and guests Sam Amidon, Meklit, Lee Knight, Brian Carpenter, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus, as well as a special pre-show talk by Prof. Lucy Durán
PERFORMANCE UPDATE: The US visa for Malian artist Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté has been delayed. We regret that she will not be able to travel to San Francisco to be part of Kronos Festival 2019. Kronos Quartet, Valérie Sainte-Agathe and the San Francisco Girls Chorus will perform the world premiere of “Tegere Tulon,” Diabaté‘s new work for Kronos’ Fifty for the Future initiative, as planned.
KRONOS QUARTET AND SAM AMIDON
Traditional (arr. Nico Muhly) / Songs + Bay Area Premieres
How Come That Blood
Weeping Mary
Oh Where
I See the Sign
with Sam Amidon, voice, banjo, guitar, violin
Aleksander Kościów / Hílathi * World premiere of choral version
with San Francisco Girls Chorus Premier Ensemble
and Valérie Sainte-Agathe, conductor, percussion
Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Tegere Tulon * World premiere
I. Funtukuru
II. Dulen
III. Kalime
IV. Wawani
with San Francisco Girls Chorus Premier Ensemble,
conducted by Valérie Sainte-Agathe
KRONOS AND FRIENDS CELEBRATE PETE SEEGER AT 100 **
Jacob Garchik / Storyteller** World premiere
Pete Seeger Songs + World premieres, to be announced from the stage
with Sam Amidon, Meklit, Lee Knight, Brian Carpenter,
and members of the San Francisco Girls Chorus Premier Ensemble,
conducted by Valérie Sainte-Agathe
Anne Popkin is proud to help sponsor this performance.
KRONOS LABS
Free and open to the public; first come, first served.
Filming the World, One Song at a Time: The Films of Pete and Toshi Seeger
Wednesday, May 29, 2019 | 7:30 PM | Kanbar Forum, Exploratorium
Film screening and discussion hosted by Todd Harvey (American Folklife Center, Library of Congress). Presented in collaboration with the Exploratorium. Learn more about this lab
Women Leaders of Bayview
Saturday, June 1, 2019 | 2:00 PM | Joe Henderson Lab, SFJAZZ Center
Talk and performance led by Valérie Sainte-Agathe featuring Shelley Bradford-Bell, Heidi Hardin, Christopher Street, Lee Knight, and singers from the San Francisco Girls Chorus’ Bayview Chorus Program
Festival Artist-in-Residence Valérie Sainte-Agathe invites fellow artists and storytellers to the stage to commemorate and celebrate voices of change in San Francisco’s underserved Bayview–Hunters Point neighborhood. Sainte-Agathe leads a discussion with small business owner and civic leader Shelley Bradford-Bell and artist, activist and educator Heidi Hardin about the unsung advocacy work of Bayview women. Teaching artist Christopher Street will join to talk about one of the many legacies of these women – arts and education programs that continue in the Bayview Opera House. The hour-long event will also include Street leading singers from the San Francisco Girls Chorus’ Bayview Chorus Program in a short set, and a sing-along with banjo player Lee Knight to honor what would have been the 100th birthday of folk music legend and social activist Pete Seeger.
Sainte-Agathe is the artistic director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus, which she has prepared and conducted since 2013. A native of Martinique, she has received degrees from Universite Paul Valery in Montpellier, Montpellier Conservatory, and University of Montpellier. Before moving to the Bay Area, she served in various positions with the Orchestre National de Montpellier, Festival de Radio France, Opéra National de Montpellier, Opera Junior, and the Festival Presence, among others. Read her full biography >
Pete Seeger: “The World that Music Lives In”
Saturday, June 1, 2019 | 5:00 PM | Joe Henderson Lab, SFJAZZ Center
Talk by Todd Harvey (American Folklife Center, Library of Congress)
Pete Seeger, who would have turned 100 years old this May, lived through the tumultuous 20th century as a force for kindness, humility, and good. His pursuits reflected the complexity of the times through the lens of music making and music creating. This talk will illustrate Seeger’s career and efforts for peace and social justice by using primary source materials held at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, where speaker Todd Harvey is a curator. Harvey works primarily with the Center’s archival collections relating to the 20th-century folk music revival, including the collections of the Seeger family, the Lomax family, Jean Ritchie, Woody Guthrie, Izzy Young, and John Cohen.
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
This year, the festival highlights the voices of singers, storytellers, and activists over three evening concerts, a Saturday morning family concert, and Kronos Labs, free public events that are new this year.
During the festival, a wide range of artists will join Kronos on stage. Experimental duo CocoRosie, Malian griot singer Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté (of Trio Da Kali), and the San Francisco Girls Chorus are all returning from last year’s festival. In addition, folk musicians Sam Amidon and Lee Knight, local singer-songwriter Meklit, composer and bassist Jherek Bischoff, writer Rebecca Solnit, filmmaker Sam Green, spoken word artist and actor Michael Wayne Turner III, and musician Brian Carpenter (of Beat Circus and Ghost Train Orchestra) will perform. Highlighting Kronos’ legacy of mentorship, students from the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts once again take center stage during the festival. Kronos is honored that Valérie Sainte-Agathe, artistic director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus and frequent Kronos collaborator, will be Kronos Festival 2019’s Artist-in-Residence.
Each festival presents Kronos with an opportunity to unveil new work. The ensemble will debut the first part of a project, commissioned by the FreshGrass Foundation, that will commemorate the life and legacy of folk icon and activist Pete Seeger, who would have turned 100 years old this May. Kronos will also perform the Bay Area premiere of Glorious Mahalia, a work by Chicago-based composer Stacy Garrop that celebrates legendary singer Mahalia Jackson through the words and spirit of oral historian and activist Studs Terkel.
Kronos also premieres three pieces written for 50 for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire: Flashlight by Stanford University composer Mark Applebaum, whose works frequently consist of both gestural movements and sound; Enthusiasm Strategies by Missy Mazzoli, “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (New York Times); and Tegere Tulon by Diabaté, whose work is inspired by (and receives its title from) the tradition of handclapping songs and dances created spontaneously by girls in country villages of southern Mali.
THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS AND SPONSORS
Kronos Festival 2019 is produced by the Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA) and is part of the San Francisco-based 501(c)3 nonprofit’s KRONOS PRESENTS program. It is made possible by generous support from San Francisco Grants for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation, and the Kronos Performing Arts Association Board of Directors.
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