KRONOS FESTIVAL ARCHIVE: 2022

KRONOS PRESENTS

Kronos Festival 2022

 

APRIL 7, 8 AND 9, 2022

SFJAZZ Center
201 Franklin Street, San Francisco, California

Jacob Garchik, Artist-In-Residence

SCHEDULE

SFJAZZ COVID-19 SAFETY POLICIES

The safety and health of all staff, patrons, and artists are of utmost importance, and SFJAZZ will continue to monitor their policies to provide a safe concert experience for everyone. As health department directives are updated, they will continue to revise their policies. Click below to review the venue’s latest COVID-19 safety protocols.

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

This year’s festival highlights Kronos’ commitment to creative collaboration, an inclusive repertoire, and to deep, longstanding relationships with artists from around the globe. The three-day celebration features nine world premieres; signature works from Kronos’ far-reaching repertoire; an anniversary celebration; and three compositions commissioned as part of Kronos’ groundbreaking Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire project. Composer, arranger, and trombonist Jacob Garchik, who has a long and fruitful artistic relationship with the ensemble, is this year’s Artist-in-Residence.

This year’s world premiere works are by Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, Adeliia Faizullina, Jacob GarchikJonathan Berger, Soo Yeon Lyuh, inti figgis-vizueta, Brian Foo & Anouk Yeh, and Mahsa Vahdat. Special guests include writer and performer Rinde Eckert, multi-instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, haegeum master Lyuh, vocalist Vahdat, and pipa virtuoso Wu Man

“Kronos Festival celebrates expanding creativity,” says Kronos’ founder David Harrington. “We honor those who have a strengthened resolve to help shape our musical future in spite of any odds. Surrounded by friends, we hope the festival energizes our listeners. Live music can be a microcosm as we listen to the future unfolding.”

“I’ve had the tremendous privilege to work with Kronos Quartet for the last 16 years,” said Garchik. “Together we’ve created over 110 works of music from all over the world. I’ve always loved working behind the scenes and collaborating with a huge range of artists but am thrilled to have my own chance to step into the spotlight with Kronos Festival.”

Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK, a free, GPS-enabled work of public art in Golden Gate Park that launched in 2021 as part of Kronos Festival, will also be ongoing at Golden Gate Park. And the festival’s intimate series Kronos Labs returns on Saturday afternoon. 

Thursday, April 7, 2022, Program #1, 7:30pm

Kronos Quartet with special guest Jacob Garchik 

Kronos Festival kicks off on Thursday, April 7 with the world premiere of Janety, a joyful work by Malian Griot singer Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté written for the 40th Anniversary of KPAA Executive Director and Kronos Manager Janet Cowperthwaite. A member of renowned ensemble Trio Da Kali, Diabaté’s work is inspired by the tegere tulon—a tradition of handclapping songs and dances created spontaneously by girls in country villages of southern Mali. Janety features a guest group of young musicians, and pays tribute to Kronos’ steadfast leader and advocate. Artist-in-Residence Jacob Garchik joins the quartet on trombone and tuba for Upon a Star, a suite arranged by Garchik based on the music of Steven Spielberg films. The program concludes with Cadenza on the Night Plain, a 13-movement work written for Kronos by one of the ensemble’s most prolific and creative collaborators, Terry Riley. Music critic Kyle Gann called Cadenza on the Night Plain “the archetypal Kronos piece.”

Friday, April 8, 2022, Program #2, 7:30pm

Kronos Quartet with special guests Rinde Eckert and Vân-Ânh Võ 

On Friday, April 8, at 7:30pm Kronos unveils two of the latest works released as part of Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, an unprecedented string quartet commissioning, performance, education, and legacy project that has been designed and developed under Cowperthwaite’s leadership. The works include Indonesian Gamelan composer and vocalist Peni Candra Rini’s Maduswara, and Beninese singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo’s YanYanKliYan Senamido #2.  Also on the program are Oasis, a one-movement composition by Azerbaijani composer Franghiz Ali-Zadeh and one of Kronos’ signature works, and Flow, a haunting work by Laurie Anderson arranged by Jacob.

Concluding the program is the world premiere of My Lai Suite, adapted from composer Jonathan Berger and librettist Harriet Scott Chessman’s acclaimed opera about Hugh Thompson, the Army helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War who courageously intervened in the U.S. Army massacre of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians. Special guest vocalist Rinde Eckert and master instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Võ perform. 

Saturday, April 9, 2022, Program #3, 7:30pm

Kronos Quartet with special guests Soo Yeon Lyuh, Mahsa Vahdat, Wu Man, and Anouk Yeh

Program #3 closes Kronos Festival with three world premieres written for Kronos. inti figgis-vizueta’s music by yourself is a piece about “connecting to people who are and aren’t still here.” Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat performs in Where Is Your Voice, a new, original song arranged by Aftab Darvishi. Korean-American composer and master of the haegeum Soo Yeon Lyuh takes the stage in Tattoo (Extended Version), the artist’s powerful response to a harrowing incident in Berkeley, California in which someone fired a gun at her car. Philip GlassOrion: China, written on the occasion of the Athens Cultural Olympiad in Summer 2004, contemplates the Earth’s relationship to the constellations as interpreted by the world’s many cultures, and features pipa virtuoso Wu Man

 The program also includes Russian nonagenarian composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s Quartet No. 4, one of Kronos’ signature works its vast body of commissions; and Jacob Garchik’s Storyteller, a 16-minute work featuring archival recordings of the legendary Pete Seeger singing, speaking, and playing his banjo. Storyteller was one of the works in Long Time Passing: Kronos Quartet and Friends Celebrate Pete Seeger, a tribute to the late folk musician and activist. 

Saturday, April 9: Kronos Labs, 2pm and 5pm

Kronos Labs features a free performance at 2pm with student musicians from around the Bay Area performing works from Fifty for the Future, including several of Garchik’s arrangements. At 5pm, Garchik is joined by an all-star group composed of the Bay Area’s premier brass players for The Heavens: The Atheist Gospel Trombone Choir, a nine-part suite for trombones, tuba, and drums.

Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK in Golden Gate Park, Ongoing, Free 

SOUNDWALK is a GPS-enabled work of public art that uses music, composed by Reid and performed by Kronos and others, to illuminate the natural environment. SOUNDWALK is custom-tailored to its setting, and has been created to encourage a deeper connection to nature and exploration of iconic spaces. Listeners access the work via a free smartphone app, and experience a dynamic sonic landscape meticulously mapped to the park’s landscape and attractions.

ABOUT JACOB GARCHIK 

Jacob Garchik, multi-instrumentalist and composer, was born in San Francisco and has lived in New York since 1994. At home in a wide variety of styles and musical roles, he is a vital part of the Downtown and Brooklyn scene, playing trombone in groups ranging from jazz to contemporary classical to Balkan brass bands. He has released 5 albums as a leader including “The Heavens: the Atheist Gospel Trombone Album”. He co-leads Brooklyn’s premiere Mexican brass band, Banda de los Muertos.

 Since 2006 Jacob has contributed over 110 arrangements and transcriptions for Kronos Quartet of music from all over the world. His arrangements were featured on “Floodplain” (2009), “Rainbow” (2010), “A Thousand Thoughts” (2014), “Folk Songs” (2017), “Ladilikan” (2017), “Landfall” (2018), “Placeless” (2019) and “Long Time Passing” (2020). 

 In 2017 he composed the score for The Green Fog  (2017), a found-footage remake of Vertigo, directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson, which Kronos performed live at the SF Film Festival premiere. He has created arrangements for Anne Sofie von Otter, Angelique Kidjo, Laurie Anderson, Rhiannon Giddens, kd lang, Jolie Holland, Natalie Merchant, Tanya Tagaq, and Alim Qasimov. He teaches “Arranging Ensemble” at Mannes College.

As a trombonist Jacob has worked with many luminaries of jazz and the avant-garde, including Henry Threadgill, Steve Swallow, Lee Konitz, Laurie Anderson, Anthony Braxton, and George Lewis. He has also played in ensembles led by emerging artists Mary Halvorson, Dafnis Prieto, Ethan Iverson, Darcy James Argue, Miguel Zenon, and Steve Lehman. In 2018 he won the “Rising Star – Trombone” category in the Downbeat Jazz Critic’s Poll.

Jacob also plays accordion, tenor horn, and tuba.

THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS AND SPONSORS

Grants for the Arts
Bernard Osher Foundation
Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles

Kronos Festival 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 funding from San Francisco Grants for the Arts. Additional support is provided by Andrea Abernethy Lunsford, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Bernard Osher Foundation.

Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK in Golden Gate Park is presented by Kronos Festival in association with McEvoy Foundation for the Arts. Additional support is provided by Ann Hatch, Andrea Lunsford, Sumiko Ito & Don Allison, and Curtis Smith & Sue Threlkeld.

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