Good Medicine
Kronos festival: Program Notes and bios
Night 1 | April 25, 2025
Terry Riley (b. 1935)
Good Medicine
from Salome Dances for Peace (1985-86)
Good Medicine is the last section of Salome Dances for Peace, an epic, two-hour-long string quartet. About Salome Riley has said:
“The idea for Salome Dances for Peace came out of an improvisation theme from The Harp of New Albion. I realized this was potentially a whole new piece. Around that time, David Harrington called me and asked me to write another string quartet.
“I thought that it should be a ballet about Salome using her alluring powers to actually create peace in the world. So Salome in this case becomes like a goddess who—drawn out of antiquity, having done evil kinds of deeds—reincarnates and is trained as a sorceress, as a shaman. And through her dancing, she is able to become both a warrior and an influence on the world leaders’ actions.
“I’m always trying to find ways that I can, besides doing music, to contribute to world peace, or maybe neighborhood peace or home peace. I told David that when we first started that I thought we ought to create a piece that can be played at the United Nations on special holidays. It would not be just a concert piece but a piece that could be played as a rite.”
Salome Dances for Peace was commissioned for Kronos by IRCAM and Betty Freeman, and recorded by Kronos for Nonesuch Records.
Hildur Guðnadóttir (b. 1982)
Fólk fær andlit (“People Get Faces”)(2020)
Arranged by Kronos (2025)
Academy Award winning Hildur Guðnadóttir is an Icelandic composer, cello player, and singer who has been manifesting herself at the forefront of experimental pop and contemporary music. In her solo works she draws out a broad spectrum of sounds from her instrument, ranging from intimate simplicity to huge soundscapes. Her work for Film and Television includes “Sicario: Day of the Soldado”, “Mary Magdalene”, “Tom of Finland”, “Journey’s End” and 20 episodes of the Icelandic TV series “Trapped” (streaming on Amazon Prime).
In addition, her body of work includes scores for films such as “Joker” starring Joaquin Phoenix, for which she won a Golden Globe award for Best Original Score and an Academy Award. Alongside the critically acclaimed HBO series “Chernobyl”, for which she received a Primetime Emmy award and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
“The HBO series stunning success owes much to Guðnadóttir’s evocative score, as discomfiting as the tragic history or malevolence on screen.” – Sydney Morning Herald
Gudnadóttir began playing cello as a child, entered the Reykjavík Music Academy and then moved on to musical studies/composition and new media at the Iceland Academy of the Arts and Universität der Künste Berlin.
Hildur has released four critically acclaimed solo albums: Mount A (2006), Without Sinking (2009), Leyfðu Ljósinu (2012) and Saman (2014). Her records have been nominated a number of times for the Icelandic Music Awards. Hildur’s albums are all released on Touch.
She has composed music for theatre, dance performances and films. The Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, Icelandic National Theatre, Tate Modern, The British Film Institute, The Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm and Gothenburg National Theatre are amongst the institutions that have commissioned new works by Hildur. She was nominated for the Nordic Music Council Prize as composer of the year 2014.
Among others, Hildur has performed live and recorded music with Skúli Sverrisson, Jóhann Jóhannsson, múm, Sunn O))), Pan Sonic, Hauschka, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Sylvian, The Knife, Fever Ray and Throbbing Gristle.
In 2018 Hildur was nominated for a Discovery of the Year Award at the World Soundtrack Academy in Gent and received several prestigious awards, including the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Score (“Mary Magdalene”) and Best Score at the Beijing International Film Festival for “Journey’s End”.
Hildur lives in Berlin, Germany.
Peni Candra Rini (b. 1983)
Segara Gunung (2023)
I. Segara Gunung (Ocean-Mountain)
II. Agni (Fire)
III. Ketia Dawa (Drought
IV. Hujan (Rain)
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976)
Peni Candra Rini is one of a few contemporary composers, songwriters, poets, and vocalists who performs sinden, a female soloist style of gamelan singing. Strongly committed to preserving and sharing the musical traditions of her home country of Indonesia, Candra Rini has created many works for vocals, gamelan, and karawitan, and regularly collaborates with artists and gamelan groups worldwide. In 2012, Candra Rini completed an artist residency at the California Art Institute, during which she appeared as guest artist at eight American universities and participated in master classes with vocal master Meredith Monk. Candra Rini is also a lecturer in the Karawitan Department and a Doctoral Candidate for Musical Arts at the Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) in Surakarta.
About Segara Gunung, Peni Candra Rini writes:
“This music is about the mountains and the sea, and the respect we have for them in Indonesia. Mountains symbolize the unity of humans and the divine and are thought to be the abode of the Gods. The sea is a woman, the spring of springs and a source of all life.
“Indonesia is also a ring of fire, encircled by active volcanoes and frequently shaken by earthquakes. The mountain brings both destruction and life. The ash from frequent eruptions has created some of the most fertile soil in the world. Villages are damaged by the eruptions but then reap the boon of the harvest.
“But the traditional respect and reverence of the land and sea has eroded in my country—in your country—pushed aside by greed. Mountains become the backdrop for tourist photos and tourism erodes the environment. Waters are rising, washing villages into the sea. Ultimately, we must remember that mother earth will clean house: burning us up and washing us clean. Ready or not. Segara Gunung is my response to these changes.”
Peni Candra Rini’s Segara Gunung (Ocean-Mountain), arranged by Jacob Garchik, was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet in celebration of its 50th anniversary by Aga Khan Music Programme, Andrea A. Lunsford and Kirsten & Gilad Wolff. Additional commissioning support was provided by KRONOS Five Decades Lead Partners Cal Performances/University of California Berkeley, Carnegie Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Portland Friends of Chamber Music, and Stanford Live, and by Partners Arizona Arts Live/University of Arizona, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Green Music Center at Sonoma State University, The Royal Conservatory of Music, and Washington Performing Arts.
Environmental sounds recorded in Borneo, courtesy of Yoga Nugraha Usmad.
A Shout
Traditional from Trinidad
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (2024)
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 100 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.
Soo Yeon Lyuh (b. 1980)
Sumbisori (Sound of Resilience) (2025)
I. Sumbisori (Signal of Life)
II. Haenyeo (Women of the Sea)
III. Ieodo (Island of Folklore)
Soo Yeon Lyuh is a composer, improviser, and master of the haegeum, a two-stringed Korean bowed instrument. Lyuh’s work strikes a balance between originality and tradition, borrowing and recontextualizing familiar gestures from Korean music. Her soundscape follows a logic of texture, pacing, feeling, and unexpected turns.
Lyuh asks classically trained performers to approach their instruments from an unusual perspective, drawing out fresh sounds that, once understood, sound organic. These sounds are deceptively difficult to specify with notation. Instead, Lyuh records herself playing the haegeum and teaches her music to performers by ear. A “score” will be both a printed page, and a set of instructional videos. She asks performers and listeners alike to reimagine the sounds of a conventional Western ensemble.
Lyuh’s music addresses present social issues. “Tattoo” (2021) is about fear and release, and responds to her own experience of a random shooting incident in California. “See You On The Other Side” (2021) was composed in response to the growing death toll of the coronavirus. “Moment 2020” (2020) has been dedicated to artists who struggle to stay creative during the pandemic. Lyuh’s music searches for connection and empathy in tumultuous times.
As a performer, Lyuh possesses flawless technique and a full command of the haegeum’s traditional repertoire. For twelve years, she was a member of South Korea’s National Gugak Center, which traces its roots to the 7th Century Shilla Dynasty and is Korea’s foremost institution for the preservation of traditional music. Lyuh has endeavored to weave authentic styles into new musical domains, relocating in 2015 to the San Francisco Bay Area and drawing inspiration from its dynamic improvised music scene. In 2017, Lyuh was awarded a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council to develop collaborations with Bay Area experimental musicians. She pushes herself not only to command a deep understanding of historical works, but also to negotiate challenging new ones.
Through the Bay Area music scene, Lyuh met David Harrington, violinist of the Kronos Quartet. Harrington invited her to include “Yessori” (2017) in the Kronos’ project Fifty for the Future, which over five years commissioned fifty string quartets from prominent and emerging composers around the globe.
“There was no question that she was a phenomenal instrumentalist,” says David Harrington. “The sounds she is able to create on the haegeum are wholly unique and open up a vast new realm of sonic possibilities to Western ears. Moreover, the breadth of her knowledge of Korean traditional music is an incredible resource for musicians and scholars alike.”
Lyuh’s interest in improvisational music draws on Korean traditions lost to generations of performers. Although playing by ear is essential in bringing Korean folk music to life, preserving traditional performance has taken precedence over expanding the music’s improvisational vocabulary. In this respect Lyuh has ventured in a decidedly experimental direction. She was featured on the record Mudang Rock (2018) with drummer Simon Barker, guitarist Henry Kaiser, bassist Bill Laswell, and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. In December 2017, she played with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith at the Create Festival in San Francisco. She also played on a free improvisation recording, Megasonic Chapel (Fractal Music, 2015), featuring Kaiser, percussionist William Winant, pianist Tania Chen, and cellist Danielle DeGruttola. Meanwhile, Lyuh honed her improvisational skills by working with cellist Joan Jeanrenaud and sitting in on courses of pianist Myra Melford and avant-garde icon Roscoe Mitchell.
In 2023, Lyuh has earned a M.F.A in composition at Princeton University and is currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation. Previously, Lyuh earned her D.M.A. in Korean Traditional Music from Seoul National University. As a lecturer, she is sought after for her ability to impart valuable insight and intercultural understanding to those unfamiliar with Korean traditional music; her dissertation researched the changing role of haegeum in Korean orchestras beginning with early court traditions. As a visiting scholar at Mills College (2017-2018) and UC Berkeley (2015-2016), Lyuh taught established and emerging composers in the Bay Area about haegeum composition and techniques in order to create new repertoire for the instrument. Lyuh has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (2011-2012).
“I think that it will be impossible to conquer the haegeum in my lifetime,” says Lyuh. “That is because it becomes harder the more I play it. The instrument continues to reveal itself. It is full of untapped possibilities for improvisation and composition. I hope the nature of my music can make a bridge between cultures across times, and break down any walls.”
About Sumbisori, Lyuh writes:
This work aims to represent and honor the fragile natural and cultural ecosystem of Jeju Island in my native Korea. Here, for centuries, women divers – haenyeo – have shouldered the grueling, life threatening work of diving for sea creatures such as uni, which are prized in Korean cuisine. In a society traditionally characterized by rigid gender norms, these mentally and physically tough women help to sustain the coastal economy and preserve unique traditional practices.
As water temperatures in the region fluctuate due to climate change, the sea life at the heart of this enterprise is threatened, and the symbiosis between coastal inhabitants and their natural surroundings shifts. On visits to this UNESCO Cultural Heritage site, I performed ethnographic interviews and incorporated a recording of a retired diver.
The women I encountered on Jeju Island expressed a “love hate” relationship with the sea. Yet, while some may have lost friends or loved ones — mothers, sisters — in the course of their dangerous work, the ocean is also their source of abundance and economic empowerment. It takes and gives.
The music is inspired by “sumbisori,” which refers to the gasping sound of the divers’ exhalation when they resurface. Diving without oxygen masks, the women hold their breath for up to two minutes and resurface with an involuntary whistling sound that tells the world “I am alive.” This is reflected in the composition through the use of enigmatic microtonal elements to evoke the mysterious echoing sounds encountered under the water, and a sharp, contrasting breath of life – an affirmation of resilience.
This composition consists of three movements, Sumbisori, Haenyeo, and Ieodo. The third captures the voice of Young-Hwa Cho, age 102. She inspired Ieoda sana, the song of the imaginary island at the center of my composition.
The program incorporates photography and video by Luciano Candisani.
I dedicate this composition to YoonJung Choi, who died on March 30, 2025 on Jeju Island.
Soo Yeon Lyuh’s Sumbisori was commissioned for Kronos Quartet and Soo Yeon Lyuh by the Howard & Sarah D. Solomon Foundation, with additional support provided by Yoon Jung Choi and Youngju Park.
Vrebalov, Alexsandra (b. 1970)
Cardinal Directions (2025)
One does not sign up to be in a warzone involuntarily. It is something that you hope doesn’t happen to you. Cardinal Directions works to understand and process the difficult and graphic images that emerged from the Vietnam War, experienced through the lens of one who witnessed another war, this one in Yugoslavia. Between what emerged as archival footage from the Vietnam War, and through the NATO bombing in 1999 of Yugoslavia, humanity can see itself at its worst. Through painful archival images, what emerges is that the human experience of war is shared – we can also be kind and empathetic, and that human connection is what can save us.
The work seeks to encompass the grief of the Vietnam War, as interpreted through the eyes of those who have experienced the sudden dissolution of a sense of home and security: composer Alexsandra Vrebalov, who witnessed her home in Yugoslavia permanently changed by war, and Vietnamese instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Võ, a champion for Vietnamese music and culture bringing a lifetime of musical exploration in traditional instruments to celebrate the diverse and rich depth of Vietnamese music.
When fleeing a conflict, one needs direction – a place to go, or a new place to call home. The four cardinal directions – North, South, East, and West – are present in the first four movements of the piece, but a fifth also exists: a vertical one. “Angel Lacrimosa” represents a spiritual observation of human tragedy – floating above the cardinal directions and encouraging us as listeners to properly evaluate our own position as empathetic participants in the world, wiser and kinder.
Gabriella Smith (b. 1991)
Keep Going (2023)
I. Keep Going
II. Isabel
III. Water
IV. Driftwood Jam
V. What I love the most
Composer Gabriella Smith grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area playing and writing music, hiking, backpacking, and volunteering on a songbird research project. Described as “the coolest, most exciting, most inventive new voice I’ve heard in ages” (Musical America) and an “outright sensation” (LA Times), Gabriella’s music comes from a love of play, exploring new sounds on instruments, building compelling musical arcs, and connecting listeners with the natural world in an invitation to find joy in climate action. Recent highlights include the premiere of her organ concerto, Breathing Forests, written for James McVinnie and LA Phil, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen; performances of Tumblebird Contrails by San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen, both at home and on their European tour; and the release of her first full-length album, Lost Coast, recorded in Iceland with cellist Gabriel Cabezas, named one of NPR Music’s “26 Favorite Albums Of 2021 (So Far)” and a “Classical Album to Hear Right Now” by The New York Times. Gabriel and Gabriella have since debuted a (cello-violin-voice-electronics) duo version of Lost Coast at the Philharmonie de Paris, and in May 2023 Gabriel will premiere the cello concerto version of Lost Coast with LA Phil, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.
About Keep Going, Gabriella Smith writes:
“I wrote Keep Going for Kronos Quartet in celebration of their 50th anniversary season. The piece features recordings of people I interviewed working on climate solutions in a wide range of fields, from ecosystem restoration (something I’m personally involved in), to renewable energy, regenerative farming, bicycle infrastructure, policy, composting, architecture, medicine, plastic pollution, environmental justice, education, and more. I wanted to provide listeners with an experience that many aren’t used to associating with the climate crisis—joy, fun, even humor. In a time when it sometimes feels so easy to slip into despair at the magnitude of everything we’re facing (as I write this, I have spent days inside unable to breathe the toxic air from nearby wildfires, something we have become sadly familiar with in recent years), this piece celebrates the people and communities all around us who refuse to give up and who are dedicating their lives to climate solutions in incredibly joyful ways that we all can and all need to be a part of.
“Many thanks to everyone who spoke with me for this project. I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunity this piece gave me to connect with and learn from people whose work I deeply admire and am inspired by. Learn more about each of their work: www.gabriellasmith.com/keepgoingvoices”
Gabriella Smith’s Keep Going was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet in celebration of its 50th anniversary by The National Endowment for the Arts and Anne Popkin. Additional commissioning support was provided by KRONOS Five Decades Lead Partners Cal Performances/University of California Berkeley, Carnegie Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Portland Friends of Chamber Music, and Stanford Live, and by Partners Arizona Arts Live/University of Arizona, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Green Music Center at Sonoma State University, The Royal Conservatory of Music, and Washington Performing Arts.
Night 2 | April 26, 2025
Sun Ra (1914-1993)
Outer Spaceways Incorporated (arr. 2023)
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976)
Sun Ra was one of the most unusual musicians in the history of jazz, moving from Fletcher Henderson swing to free jazz with ease, sometimes in the same song. Portraying himself as a product of outer space, he “traveled the spaceways” with a colorful troupe of musicians, using a multitude of percussion and unusual instrumentation, from tree drum to celeste.
Sun Ra, who enjoyed cloaking his origins and development in mystery, is known to have studied piano early on with Lula Randolph in Washington, DC. His first noted professional job was during 1946-47 as pianist with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra at the Club DeLisa on the South Side of Chicago. In addition to playing piano in the band he also served as one of the staff arrangers. Finding his calling as an arranger, he put together a band to play his compositions. In the 1950s, he began issuing recordings of his unusual music on his Saturn label, becoming one of the first jazz musicians to record and sell his own albums. Sun Ra’s band became a central part of the early avant-garde jazz movement in Chicago, being one of the first jazz bands to employ electronic instruments. In 1960, he moved his band to New York, where he established a communal home for his musicians, known as the Sun Palace, and by 1970s, the Sun Ra Arkestra and its various permutations began touring Europe extensively. An outsider who linked the African-American experience with ancient Egyptian mythology and outer space, Sun Ra was years ahead of all other avant-garde musicians in his experimentation with sound and instruments, a pioneer in group improvisations and the use of electric instruments in jazz.
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. 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. In 2018 he won the “Rising Star – Trombone” category in the Downbeat Jazz Critic’s Poll. Jacob also plays accordion, tenor horn, and tuba.
About Outer Spacways Incorporated, Jacob Garchik writes:
“Sun Ra recorded ‘Outer Spaceways Incorporated’ many times. To create this arrangement, I listened to as many renditions as I could find—abstracted solo piano concerts, instrumental Arkestra odysseys with long, freely improvised introductions, electro-acoustic versions, and the swinging version with June Tyson singing that appears in the film Space is the Place. In place of the often raucous solo section that followed the vocal versem, I made a little ‘shout chorus’ for Kronos that tried to capture the time-traveling feeling of Sun Ra; that you are listening to music that exists in past, present, and future all at once.”
This remix was created for the Red Hot + Ra series—a large-scale, multi-album multimedia series featuring many artists offering their interpretations of and tributes to the music of Sun Ra. Illustrating Sun Ra’s profound influence on contemporary culture around the world, the series also aims to raise awareness about climate justice. Outer Spaceways Incorporated is part of the Red Hot + Ra album curated by Kronos’ David Harrington, released in 2024.
Viet Cuong (b. 1990)
Next Week’s Trees (2024)
About Next Week’s Trees, Viet Cuong writes:
The title of this piece comes from Mary Oliver’s poem “Walking To Oak-Head Pond, And Thinking Of The Ponds I Will Visit In The Next Days And Weeks.” In this particular time of great loss, I was deeply inspired by Oliver’s words—words that are a gentle reminder of the uncertainty of the future, the confident hope of the present, and the propulsive force of life that drives us through any doubt that a new day will arrive.
Next Week’s Trees was commissioned by the California Symphony as part of their Young American Composer-in-Residence program. Heartfelt thanks to everyone at the California Symphony.
inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993)
clay songs (2023)
New York–based composer inti figgis-vizueta braids a childhood of overlapping immigrant communities and Black-founded Freedom schools—in Chocolate City (DC)—with direct Andean & Irish heritage and a deep connection to the land. “Her music feels sprouted between structures, liberated from certainty and wrought from a language we’d do well to learn” writes The Washington Post. inti’s work explores the transformative power of group improvisation and play, working to reconcile historical aesthetics and experimental practices with trans & Indigenous futures. Recent highlights include the Carnegie Hall premiere of her string quartet concerto, Seven Sides of Fire, written for the Attacca Quartet and American Composers Orchestra, conducted by Mei-Ann Chen; performances of Coradh (bending) by the Spoleto Festival, PODIUM Festival, and Oregon Symphony; and the REDCAT premiere of her evening-length show Music for Transitions, created in collaboration with two-time Grammy Award-winning cellist Andrew Yee, praised as “thrilling” and “revolutionary” by I Care If You Listen. Upcoming projects include a new Carnegie Hall-commissioned work for Ensemble Connect, continued development of Earths to Come for vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, and a new piano concerto for Conrad Tao and the Cincinnati Symphony, conducted by Matthias Pintscher.
About clay songs, inti figgis-vizueta writes:
“clay songs grew out of my 2022 residency at Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard research institute, museum, & garden in Washington, D.C. During my fellowship I was invited to musically activate their collection of original Pre-Columbian sounding objects including ceramic whistling jars & rain bowls, marble vessels, shell necklaces, and gold bells. It was a profound experience to animate and hear these ancestral voices sing vibrantly millennia later. I was invited to return to the collection after the culmination of my residency and my final presentation was a panel & sounding demo titled ‘Andean Whistling Pots in the Past, Present, and Future.’
“While writing clay songs for the Kronos Quartet, I was inspired by the meeting of past and present voices through these artifacts. I imagined a past where ceramic melodies grew into mountain choruses and all the broken and surviving objects from pre-colonial eras, landscapes, and cultures sounded together. The whistling jar replicas for Kronos provide the means to communicate and harmonize with these pasts, experiment and explore new sonic worlds, and, hopefully, glimpse new futures.”
inti figgis-vizueta’s clay songs was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet in celebration of its 50th anniversary by Andrea A. Lunsford and Kirsten & Gilad Wolff. Additional commissioning support was provided by KRONOS Five Decades Lead Partners Cal Performances/University of California Berkeley, Carnegie Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Portland Friends of Chamber Music, and Stanford Live, and by Partners Arizona Arts Live/University of Arizona, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Green Music Center at Sonoma State University, The Royal Conservatory of Music, and Washington Performing Arts.
Nina Simone (b. 1933–2003)
For All We Know (1958)
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976)
The symbiotic relationship between jazz artists and the American Songbook can look strange from the outside. Standards written by Broadway composers, Tin Pan Alley tunesmiths and Hollywood songwriters in the half-century before the advent of the Beatles still have widespread currency in the 21st century because jazz vocalists and instrumentalists continue to reimagine and transform them in ways that their originators often found alarming. Few artists put a more indelible personal stamp on familiar songs than Nina Simone, but even in the realm shaped by the High Priestess of Soul’s alchemical prowess, “For All We Know” stands out as a singular transformation.
Kronos’ David Harrington, who often spends odd hours of free time spelunking through the internet following hints and clues in search of new sounds, can’t recall exactly how he found his way to the video of Simone performing “For All We Know” in a studio. But he’ll never forget the thrill of discovery and the feeling of being transfixed by her performance. “I was talking with a musician recently about the idea that rabbit holes are real places,” he said. “And they can be really fun. I can’t tell you how I ended up hearing Nina’s live performance of ‘For All We Know’ but I was in a hotel room and all the sudden there it was. I could not stop listening to her. I thought, this is perfection. Musical perfection.”
Simone first recorded the song on the sessions that produced her 1959 debut album Little Girl Blue, though “For All We Know” wasn’t included on that Bethlehem record. Taking advantage of her sudden rise to stardom with her hit version of “I Loves You, Porgy,” the label released several leftover tracks on the compilation Nina And Her Friends without her knowledge. While she sang the Sam M. Lewis lyrics from the 1934 standard, Simone entirely eschewed the melody by J. Fred Coots and reimagined the song as a Baroque-style fugue. Performing with bassist Chris White and guitarist Al Schackman, she elaborates on that arrangement on the video that enthralled Harrington.
Harrington and arranger Jacob Garchik envision Simone’s version within a three-piece suite that pays homage to Questlove’s Grammy- and Academy Award–winning documentary Summer of Soul alongside arrangements inspired by gospel legend Mahalia Jackson’s “Precious Lord” and Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People.” Where those pieces are definitive renditions of beloved songs, Simone’s “For All We Know” is something quite different, (she doesn’t perform the song in the film) and confusing. She wrote the arrangement at a time when she still aspired to a career as a concert pianist, ambition that was thwarted by her stinging rejection from the Curtis Institute of Music despite an outstanding audition. (The Institute would later award her with an honorary degree in 2003.)
“She studied classical piano at Juilliard and she ends up going way beyond that,” Garchik said. “In this period she’s still drawing strongly from that background and you can hear that in this composition. She took the lyrics of an old Tin Pan Alley standard and wrote this loose sort of fugue with a completely different melody. It sounds to me like she composed an intro and ending and the middle is improvised. Hank plays the low part. Her voice fits the viola very well.”
Simone wasn’t done with the piece. She recorded the melody again with a new set of lyrics for her 1967 orchestral album Silk & Soul. The album’s concluding track, “Consummation,” transposes a tale of romance into a soaring account of spiritual bliss that leaves Tin Pan Alley dwindling in the distance.
Program note by Andrew Gilbert
Jacob Garchik’s arrangement of Nina Simone’s “For All We Know” was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by the Kronos Festival.
‘Ya Taali’een ‘ala el-Jabal’ – arranged by Jonathan Berger
Ya Taali’een ‘ala el-Jabal is a traditional Palestinian song dating from the Ottoman reign. During the British Mandate Palestinian women would sing the song outside the prisons where their loved ones were incarcerated. The song uses imlolaah, a Pig-Latin like insertion of an onomatopoeic word from the syllable ‘L’, followed by a vowel which is repeated in order to mask the original word. Thus the text was unintelligible to the guards.
The voice is that of the inimitable Rim Banna whose performance of Ya Taali’een was never released publicly. It is used by permission of the Banna family.
ARIEL ABERG-RIGER (b. 1981) / HAMZA EL-DIN (1929–2006)
“Swimming with Rachel Carson” / Escalay
Ariel Aberg-Riger is a visual storyteller who creates engaging, accessible stories about history, science, policy, and other forces that shape our lives. Her work explores issues of equity and social justice on topics that range from environmental racism to the public library. She has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Teen Vogue, and more. Aberg-Riger is a 2020 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in nonfiction literature, and her debut book, America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History, won the 2023 Kirkus Prize for young readers’ literature. She is a big believer in the power of melding forms and morphing mediums to tell expansive stories. She has listened to (and been inspired by) Kronos Quartet for years while creating her work, and she is thrilled to be in collaboration with them. She lives with her wife and two kids in Buffalo, New York.
In the Author’s Own Words Rachel Carson (1907–1964) was a marine biologist, writer, caretaker, and activist whose final book, Silent Spring, is credited with helping launch the modern environmental movement. While Silent Spring focuses on slow horrors, like the bioaccumulation of toxins in nature and ourselves, her earlier books focus on boundless wonder—she wrote a whole trilogy about the sea. In the current moment of cascading climate collapse, this collaboration seeks to honor Carson’s legacy by drawing power from her dedication to wonder as a catalyst for action. As she wrote, “it seems reasonable to believe—and I do believe—that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race.”
—Ariel Aberg-Riger
Born in Nubia in 1929, and educated at the Fouad Institute of Music in Cairo and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, El Din was living and teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time of his death in 2006. For Escalay, he drew upon both the musical and the cultural traditions of his homeland. “Our music system is Afro-Arab— we are a bridge, musically and culturally, between Africa and the Middle East,” he said. “I wanted the quartet to represent the sound of my instrument, the oud. The challenge was to make audible the overtones that only the musician can hear from a solo instrument—the unheard voice. Amazingly, Kronos performs it as if they are from that place.
In the society of what once was Nubia, the water wheel was the oldest mechanical device used for farmland irrigation. When Nubian musician Hamza El Din was commissioned by Lincoln Center to compose his first piece for Kronos Quartet, he sought to recreate both the sounds and the images of that ancient culture. “My country was flooded after the construction of the Aswan Dam,” El Din explained, “and we lost it after a recorded history of 9,000 years, so I have a nostalgia for that place. Escalay is a representation of how to start the waterwheel and let it run.”
“I was in New York when the Aswan Dam was finished,” writes El-Din. “I lost my village. When I went back and saw my village and my people in a different place, I saw in their eyes the loss. I saw my people were lost. They had moved to an almost semi-desert place. When I came back, I was lost myself. I was playing my oud, doing nothing except repeating a phrase. I was on the water wheel, the oldest surviving machine in our land. Whoever sits on that machine will become hypnotized by that noise.
“Terry Riley introduced me to Kronos, who asked me to write a piece for them. They liked the idea of the water wheel. Everyone who sits behind the oxen, which helps the water wheel go round, will express himself according to his age. If it’s a child, he’ll sing a children’s song. If it’s a woman or a man, she or he will sing a love song. If it’s an older man, he’ll sing a religious song. I wrote this as the sound of the older man, so with Kronos it becomes a religious song.”
—Derk Richardson
Composed in 1989, Hamza El Din’s Escalay was commissioned for Kronos Quartet by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Kronos’ recording appears on Pieces of Africa, released on Nonesuch Records. Sheet music of Escalay is available in Volume 1 of the Kronos Collection, a performing edition published by Boosey & Hawkes.
Maurseth, Benedicte (b. 1983) and Tjøgersen, Kristine (b. 1982)
Elja (2024/25)
I. Elja
II. Rull / Meadow Pipit (Heipiplerka)
III. Springar / Ground Blizzard (Snødrev)
IV. Skumringsvinger / Wings of Dusk
V. Mýrr / Mire
VI. Augnaferd / The Eye’s Distant Journey
VII. Halling / My Mountains (Heimfjell)*
Elja is inspired by the vast open landscape of Hardangervidda in southern Norway. The mountain
plateau is considered the largest in Europe: a barren treeless moorland, with countless pools,
lakes, rivers and streams, moraines and glaciers. You can walk for days and still not have reached
the end.
The Hardanger region is a vital habitat for numerous species. Elja honors this landscape and its
inhabitants: wild reindeer, wolverine, Arctic fox, cranes, golden plover, Lapland longspur, snowy
owl, Eurasian whimbrel, curlew, ptarmigan and more. All of them are parts of a fragile ecosystem
where everything is connected and co-dependent. In the past 50 years, these diverse animals,
plants and insects have decreased in numbers. The reasons for this decline are myriad, one of the
main factors being human impact. The loss of moorland and the disappearance of insects affect
the entire food chain, leaving the landscape more and more quiet.
This rugged space is also home to Hardanger fiddle playing, a tradition passed on orally from
masters to students over several centuries. Modal scales, intricate rhythms, rich timbre,
ornamentation, and numerous recurring musical motifs characterize this fiddle music, collectively
allowing for high degrees of individual expression. This musical heritage forms the foundation of
Maurseth’s compositions, weaving together lyrical qualities, a strong melodic focus, and the use
of minimalistic repetition in conjunction with spontaneous composition.
Tjøgersen characterizes her compositional practice through curiosity, imagination, humor and
precision. In her work, she creates unexpected auditory situations through playing with tradition.
She reflects nature in motion and process in her works, and collaborates with researchers and
biologists for sources of new sound and scenic ideas, inspiring her to incorporate organic forms
into the music.
As Tjøgersen puts it, “By giving nature a voice in the concert hall, I want the audience to get to
know valuable forms of life, and to raise awareness of what can be lost if humans continue to
change nature.”
Elja reflects the dynamic partnership of Tjøgersen and Maurseth. They have collaborated to
compose a piece that blends Maurseth’s expertise as a traditional Hardanger fiddler with Tjøgersen’s innovative and sonorous musical style, creating colorful landscapes filled with overtones, lyrical quality, adventurous spirit, wind, and groove.
The work Elja is performed on various types of Hardanger fiddles – instruments with resonating
strings and different tunings originating from the Hardanger region in Western Norway. The
Hardanger fiddle has been one of the main instruments in Norwegian traditional music for
centuries. The gifted Norwegian luthier, Ottar Kåsa, has custom built the Hardanger viola and
Hardanger cello with resonating strings for the Kronos Quartet.
*Heimfjell is composed by Benedicte Maurseth, Kristine Tjøgersen and Lars Skoglund.
Benedicte Maurseth & Kristine Tjøgersen’s Elja was commissioned for Kronos Quartet by Carnegie Hall, with additional support provided by The Norwegian Composers’ Fund, Music Norway, and Arts and Culture Norway.
Finale | April 27, 2025
Nicole Lizée (b. 1973)
Death to Kosmische (2010)
Nicole Lizée is a composer, sound artist and keyboardist based in Montreal, Quebec. Her compositions range from works for large ensemble and solo turntablist featuring DJ techniques fully notated and integrated into a concert music setting, to other unorthodox instrument combinations that include the Atari 2600 video game console, Simon and Merlin handheld games, and karaoke tapes. Lizée has received commissions from artists and ensembles such as l’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, CBC, So Percussion, and Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society. In 2010 she was awarded a fellowship from the prestigious Civitella Ranieri Foundation based in New York City and Italy. She has twice been named a finalist for the Jules-Léger Prize, most recently in 2007 for This Will Not Be Televised, scored for chamber ensemble and turntables, and recommended among the Top Ten at the 2008 International Rostrum of Composers. In 2002 she was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts Robert Fleming Prize, and in 2004 she was nominated for an Opus Prize.
About Death to Kosmische, Lizée writes:
“Death to Kosmische is a work that reflects my fascination with the notion of musical hauntology and the residual perception of music, as well as my love/hate relationship with the idea of genres. The musical elements of the piece could be construed as the faded and twisted remnants of the Kosmische style of electronic music. To do this, I have incorporated two archaic pieces of music technology (the Stylophone and the Omnichord) and have presented them through the gauze of echoes and reverberation, as well as through imitations of this technology as played by the strings. I think of the work as both a distillation and an expansion of one or several memories of music that are irrevocably altered by the impermanence of the mind. Only ghosts remain.”
Nicole Lizée’s Death to Kosmische was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by Margaret Dorfman and the Ralph I. Dorfman Family Fund.
Ortman, Laura (b. 1973)
Scended Sparks (2025)
1. The Butterfly Joy Rides
2. Sending On Over (High Low High)
3. Waves Carve the Sound
4. Sending On Over (Near to Far)
5. Prisms Ever Wild Ready
Traversing nature’s pathways forms communicative essences in languages, relationships and sights and sounds. Scended Sparks is a reinterpretation of this experience. Featuring traditional Apache violin alongside amplified violin, the work seeks to imbue this experience with vibrant energy, a joyful sense of communication through language, and a connection to nature through a collage of melodies and rhythms.
The piece has five movements that encourage listeners to pay attention to the world and the experience of moving through it. “The Butterfly Joy Rides” depicts a journey – buffeted by the wind as you fly, choosing a direction, and making the trip up as you go. “Sending on Over” are passages that speak to the movement of the families of Athabaskan languages throughout North America, including the Apache languages of the White Mountain Apache tribe. In “Waves Carve the Sound,” we are encouraged to listen deeply to the reverberations of the world, hearing the tremeloes of the instruments as rumblings of forces larger than us. In the final movement, “Prisms Ever Wild Ready,” listen for the dancing of light on water – a flickering and changing perspective of a landscape that might otherwise seem still.
Change often precipitates optimism: reinterpreting the experience to one of exploration, preservation, and positive growth, and claiming the changes as a testament to human resilience, improvisation, and perseverance.
For String Quartet, Apache violin, Amplified Violin
Mary Kouyoumdjian (b. 1983)
Bombs of Beirut (2013)
Mary Kouyoumdjian was selected as the recipient of the fifth commission offered through the Kronos: Under 30 Project. Begun in 2003, the Kronos: Under 30 Project is a commissioning and residency program for composers under 30 years of age, created to acknowledge the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Kronos Quartet. The program supports the creation of new work by young artists, and helps Kronos cultivate stronger connections with young composers in order to develop lasting artistic relationships with the next creative generation.
Kouyoumdjian is a composer with projects ranging from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. As a first-generation Armenian-American and having come from a family directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide, she uses a sonic palette that draws on her heritage, interest in folk music, and background in experimental composition to progressively blend the old with the new.
Kouyoumdjian has received commissions from Carnegie Hall for This Should Feel Like Home, the American Composers Forum/JFund for Dzov Yerku Kooynov [Sea of Two Colors], REDSHIFT, the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble, the Nouveau Classical Project, Friction Quartet, Experiments in Opera, and Ensemble Oktoplus. Of her recent Carnegie Hall premiere of This Should Feel Like Home, the New York Times called her “eloquently scripted sequence of vignettes” an “emotionally wracking” piece. In her work as a composer, orchestrator, and music editor for film, she has collaborated on a diverse array of motion pictures and most recently orchestrated on the soundtrack to The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features). Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, Kouyoumdjian also actively promotes the growth of new music in her native state of California.
Holding an M.A. in Scoring for Film & Multimedia from New York University and a B.A. in Music Composition from the University of California, San Diego, she has studied contemporary composition with Chaya Czernowin, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, and Chinary Ung; new music performance with Steven Schick; and modern jazz with Anthony Davis.
Kouyoumdjian is also a co-founder and the executive director of the New York–based contemporary music ensemble Hotel Elefant. For more information, visit marykouyoumdjian.com.
About Bombs of Beirut, Kouyoumdjian writes:
“Lebanon, once the refuge where my grandparents and great-grandparents sought safety from the Armenian Genocide, became the dangerous home my parents and brother were forced to abandon during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). We often read stories and see images in the news about violent events in the Middle East, but we very rarely get to hear the perspective of an individual who lived through them. Inspired by loved ones who grew up during the Lebanese Civil War, it is my hope that Bombs of Beirut provides a sonic picture of what day-to-day life is like in a turbulent Middle East—not filtered through the news and media, but through the real words of real people.
“The prerecorded backing track includes interviews with family and friends who shared their various experiences living in a time of war; it also presents sound documentation of bombings and attacks on civilians tape-recorded on an apartment balcony between 1976–1978.”
Mary Kouyoumdjian offers her special thanks to the Kronos Quartet for making this piece a reality, to loved ones for sharing their lives and stories, and to Hagop T. Bazerkanian for sharing his home recordings of the Lebanese Civil War. She dedicates Bombs of Beirut to her family.
Mary Kouyoumdjian’s Bombs of Beirut was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet as part of Kronos: Under 30 Project / #5 by Hancher at the University of Iowa, Syracuse University, the Board of Directors of the Kronos Performing Arts Association, and individual backers of the Kronos: Under 30 Project / #5 Kickstarter campaign. Additional support was provided by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Sally and Don Lucas Artists Residency Program at Montalvo Arts Center.
Zachary James Watkins (b. 1980)
Peace Be Till (2017)
Zachary James Watkins studied composition with Janice Giteck, Jarrad Powell, Robin Holcomb and Jovino Santos Neto at Cornish College. In 2006, he received an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College, where he studied with Chris Brown, Fred Frith, Alvin Curran and Pauline Oliveros. Watkins has received commissions from Documenta 14, Kronos Quartet, The Living Earth Ensemble, sfsound and the Seattle Chamber Players, among others. His Suite for String Quartet was awarded the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for Composition, and has subsequently been performed at The Lab’s 25th anniversary celebration (San Francisco), the Labor Sonor Series at kunsthaus KuLe (Berlin), and as part of the Town Hall New Music Marathon (Seattle) featuring violist Eyvind Kang.
In 2008, Watkins premiered a new multi-media work entitled Country Western as part of the Meridian Gallery’s Composers in Performance Series, which received grants from the American Music Center and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts. An excerpt of this piece is published on a compilation album entitled The Harmonic Series. He recently completed Documentado / Undocumentado, a multimedia interactive book in collaboration with Guillermo Gómez Peña, Gustavo Vasquez, Jennifer Gonzalez and Felicia Rice. ARTLIES described his sound art work Third Floor::Designed Obsolescence as ” a metaphor for the breakdown of the dream of technology and the myth of our society’s permanence.”
Watkins has performed in numerous festivals across the United States, Mexico and Europe. His band Black Spirituals opened for pioneering Drone Metal band Earth during their 2015 European tour. He releases music on the labels Sige, Cassauna, Confront (UK), The Tapeworm and Touch (UK). Novembre Magazine, ITCH, Walrus Press and the New York Miniature Ensemble have published his writings and scores. Watkins has been an artist in resident at the Espy Foundation, Djerassi, the Headlands Center for The Arts and the Amant Foundation Siena, Italy.
About Peace Be Till, Watkins writes:
“My compositions are interested in questions most of which I have yet to define. One clear concern is high vibration resonance. This can be understood any way you wish, as each of the three words have complex meanings. For me this phrase represents an interest in imagining radical energy exchange / transformation. Composing relationships that have potential to excite, resonate, grow, energize.
“Over time my output for new through-composed works has focused on site specificity, individuals, economy of resources. I often attempt single-page scores and I always try to write for specific individuals and rooms if at all possible. Strategies designed to investigate high vibration resonance.
“Peace Be Till written for the Kronos Quartet is my first truly substantial commission. When David Harrington contacted me in early 2017, I was absolutely beside myself. We met soon after and he proposed a vision that involved an important historical time and place: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream Speech” during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. David shared an inspiring moment during this speech when Mahalia Jackson, artist and close friend of Dr. King, shouts: “Tell them about the Dream! Tell them about the Dream!” This instinctual cry to action is understood to have inspired Dr. King to stray from his prepared speech and launch into an improvised version of “I Have a Dream” that comrade Clarence Jones played a role in drafting.
“Peace Be Till is about the legacy of America’s Civil Rights Movement, the important role artists play in critical Social Justice movements and the necessary dreams today. As an American born in 1980 of mixed raced African and European American heritage, I feel that I am a direct result of this struggle. A family that believed that we are one and that America is capable of embracing diversity. From day one I have always experienced racialized America and yet feel a privilege being male and heterosexual. Times are still tough. This piece pays homage to the artist’s instinct to inspire and activate, as well as our ability to wrestle with the sensitive nature of things. In my case I deal with the physics and potential power of sound.
“In the Spring of 2017, David Harrington and I met with Dr. King’s personal lawyer and speechwriter Dr. Clarence B. Jones at the Women’s Audio Mission in San Francisco. We placed microphones in a room and recorded a conversation that focused on Dr. Jones’s own upbringing, his love of music, how he met Dr. King (a life-changing event which he calls “the making of a disciple”), the powerful “I have a Dream” speech, as well as sharing ideas about current realities. These recorded stories became my blueprint for this composition. The role of Mahalia in our human story is equally substantial and I invited a close friend and collaborator Amber McZeal to contribute by resonating her energy and voice sympathetically throughout the accompanying sound collage. This work explores simultaneous threads that weave in and out of each other with an intention to nurture and breathe.
“I want to deeply thank the Kronos Quartet for believing in me; Dr. Clarence B. Jones for his power and service to each of us; Amber McZeal for her love, depth and inspiration during this intense process; Mahalia Jackson for her unbelievable artistry and strength; and lastly Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for living, breathing, sacrificing for love and social justice.”
Zachary James Watkins’s Peace Be Till was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by Carnegie Hall, with additional support from the David Harrington Research and Development Fund.
Satho, Tsering Wangmo (b. 1967)
Arranged by Greg Saunier (b. 1969)
Wisdom Eyes (2024/25)
I. Opera
II. Farming Song
III. Mountain Song
IV. Alla Chitarra
V. Once Through Quartet, Once Through Singers
VI. Variations
VII. Prioritize Physicality Over Precision
VIII. Changshey
IX. Finale
Music is medicine. When everything you know has been ripped away from you and you find yourself in a strange land – making ends meet after fleeing political persecution – it’s a refuge. The people of Tibet have had to cope with a series of hardships not of their making for nearly a century. Staying true to the cultural strongholds of art and music are a way to keep connections alive, even through diaspora and all of the other worldly concerns that intrude on what should be a tranquil life.
Tibetan music is an important cultural force. Passed on through oral tradition, learning to sing and dance in the Tibetan style not only preserves a culture and history threatened by exile and political persecution; it is also a way for people in diaspora to come together, build generational bonds, and participate in a shared experience that bridges geographical, generational, and political divides, with grandchildren immersed in the musical world of their grandparents, and people from all walks of life connecting with one another. Through learning comes healing, and singing is good medicine. Tsering views teaching as a sacred charge, not only preserving the art that would otherwise be lost to time, but inspiring young people in the Tibetan diaspora to feel proud of their heritage and come together to participate in cultural practices for generations to come.
Wisdom Eyes represents the breadth and depth of Tibetan music, from its revered opera to folk songs from across the mountainous Nepalese region, from Lhasa to the border of China. Tibetan opera traces its history for thousands of years, embracing all aspects of human life: its joys, its turbulence, its trials, and at times, its peace. Within these songs are stories of resilience and hardship, feast and famine, joy and grief, but above all the goodness of people and the desire to do good for people. The performance also embraces the talents of Greg Saunier, an innovative drummer known for his work with the band Deerhoof, who orchestrated this arrangement to represent the complexities of modern existence in all of its exuberance, frailty, hopefulness, and fear.
Wisdom Eyes encourages listeners to seek beyond what stereotypes persist about a timeless cloud of singing bowls and prayer, and see the 150,000 displaced people for who they are, in the words of Greg Saunier “as given to bitterness, humor, innovation, terror, drunkenness, revolutionary spirit, and desire for freedom as any other member of our species.” In an age where one might feel adrift, the music that has held up so many in the past can be a source of comfort, inspiration, and community. And the community is strong. As Saunier puts it, “I’m grateful to Tsering for sharing her wisdom with me during the writing process, and to David and Valerie for audaciously imagining that an indie-rock drummer such as myself was the person to undertake this task.”
This performance is dedicated to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, who celebrates his 90th birthday this year.
Tsering Wangmo-Satho & Gregory Saunier’s Wisdom Eyes was commissioned for Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Girls Chorus and Tsering Wangmo-Satho by the Kronos Festival 2025, the David Harrington Research and Development Fund, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus.
Kronos Quartet
David Harrington, violin
Gabriela Díaz, violin
Ayane Kozasa, viola
Paul Wiancko, cello
For 50 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet has reimagined what the string quartet experience can be. One of the most celebrated and influential groups of our era, Kronos has given thousands of concerts worldwide, released more than 70 recordings, and collaborated with many of the world’s most accomplished composers and performers across many genres. Kronos has received more than 40 awards, including three Grammys and the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre Prizes.
Through its nonprofit organization, Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA), Kronos has commissioned more than 1,100 works and arrangements for quartet. KPAA also manages Kronos’ concert tours, local performances, recordings, and education programs, and produces an annual Kronos Festival in San Francisco. In its most ambitious commissioning effort to date, KPAA has recently completed Kronos Fifty for the Future. Through this initiative, Kronos has commissioned—and distributed online for free—50 new works for string quartet designed for students and emerging professionals, written by composers from around the world.
THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS AND SPONSORS
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 support from San Francisco Grants for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation.
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