We’re excited to announce the release of the FINAL seven additions to 50 for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, Kronos’ commissioning, performance, education, and legacy initiative. Scores and parts, recordings and companion learning materials for new string quartets composed by Rafiq Bhatia, Peni Candra Rini, Bryce Dessner, inti figgis-vizueta, Barry Guy, Angélique Kidjo, and Paul Wiancko are now available online, free of charge. Listen to the works below:
This online release marks the completion of the 50 for the Future repertoire, adding to previously published pieces by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Laurie Anderson, Mark Applebaum, Ken Benshoof, Raven Chacon, Aftab Darvishi, Fodé Lassana Diabaté, Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, Alexandra du Bois, Mario Galeano Toro, Guillermo Galindo, Rhiannon Giddens, Philip Glass, Yotam Haber, Zakir Hussain, Susie Ibarra, Joan Jeanrenaud, Garth Knox, Aleksander Kościów, Nicole Lizée, Lu Yun, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Tod Machover, Sky Macklay, Vladimir Martynov, Missy Mazzoli, Misato Mochizuki, Aruna Narayan, Onutė Narbutaitė, Angélica Negrón, Jlin Patton, Kala Ramnath, Karin Rehnqvist, Terry Riley, Yevgeniy Sharlat, Charlton Singleton, Trey Spruance, Tanya Tagaq, Stephan Thelen, Henry Threadgill, Merlijn Twaalfhoven, Aleksandra Vrebalov and Wu Man.
Kronos’ 50 for the Future is devoted to the most contemporary approaches to the string quartet and designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals. Launched in 2015 by the Kronos Performing Arts Association with Lead Partner Carnegie Hall, Fifty for the Future continues to grow, with scores downloaded more than 27,00 times by musicians in 100+ countries and territories around the globe.
—
About the Works
Rafiq Bhatia is a composer, producer, and guitarist who moves fluidly between jazz and rock groups, Indian and American musical influences, and acoustic and electronic sounds. The first-generation American son of Muslim immigrant parents who trace their ancestry to India by way of East Africa, Bhatia often looks to his family’s labyrinthine history for inspiration. Bhatia is also a member of the band Son Lux. About Glimmers, he writes: “I hope that in offering Glimmers in the form of a guitar-based recording—in which ensembles performing the work are invited to transcribe my original versions in creating their own iteration of the piece—I might provide an opportunity for string players of the future to exercise these muscles. In attempting to locate and embody these sounds on their own instruments, I hope they might discover insights less readily available on the page, or even gain the confidence to draw inspiration from less likely sources. There are magical things that can come from filtering ideas back and forth through different interfaces.“
Peni Candra Rini is the daughter of a master puppeteer from East Java Indonesia, and one of few female contemporary composers, songwriters, poets, and vocalists who performs sinden, a soloist-female style of gamelan singing. Strongly committed to preserving and sharing the musical traditions of her country, Candra Rini has created many musical compositions for vocals, gamelan, and karawitan. About Maduswara, she writes: “Maduswara was arranged to encourage this generation of pesindhen (female Javanese singer) to realize their duty as the conveyor of the universal values of life because, whether they are aware or not, these artists shape the spirit of the nation.”
Bryce Dessner is a vital and rare force in new music. He has won Grammy Awards as a classical composer and with the band The National, of which he is founding member, guitarist, arranger, and co-principal songwriter. He is regularly commissioned to write for the world’s leading ensembles, and is a high-profile presence in film score composition. Also active as a curator, Dessner co-founded the festivals MusicNOW in Cincinnati, HAVEN in Copenhagen, Sounds from a Safe Harbour, and PEOPLE. About Le Bois, he writes: “Le Bois for string quartet is based on Pérotin’s Sederunt principes, and was inspired by the Notre Dame Cathedral and the 1,000-year-old wood ceiling that was lost in the devastating fire there in the spring of 2019. Le Bois is a musical reflection on the impermanence of so many things we take for granted, whether it be our relationships, the structures that surround us, or our environment itself, which is rapidly being destroyed by climate change.”
Originally from Washington D.C. and now residing in New York City, inti figgis-vizueta focuses on close collaborative relationships with a wide range of ensembles and soloists. Her musical practice is physical and visceral, attempting to reconcile historical aesthetics and experimental practices with trans & indigenous futures. About branching patterns, she writes: “This past year has me focusing on sounds changing around me. ‘branching patterns’ is a piece focusing on those fleeting moments, giving materials and parameters as well as a great deal of freedom in how the music itself (patterns & motion) might manifest.”
Barry Guy is an innovative bass player and composer whose creative diversity in the fields of jazz improvisation, chamber and orchestral performance, and solo recitals is the outcome both of an unusually varied training and a zest for experimentation, underpinned by a dedication to the double bass and the ideal of musical communication. About what is the word, he writes: “The work of Samuel Beckett has been a constant companion throughout my life, and this string quartet—an act without (obvious) words—represents another part of the journey where I have been irresistibly drawn into his beautiful, strange world observing the human condition.”
Three-time Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo is a creative force in international music today, with thirteen albums to her name. As a performer, her striking voice, stage presence and fluency in multiple cultures and languages have won respect from her peers and expanded her following across national borders. Kidjo has cross-pollinated the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America. About YanYanKliYan Senamido, she writes: “In Beninese traditional music, there is not a clear separation between melody and rhythm. Each percussion is playing a melodic pattern and each vocal melody has a very complex rhythm. I hope YanYanKliYan Senamido will become, for future students, a brief introduction of the beautiful music of my country.”
Paul Wiancko was recently featured in The Washington Post’s “22 for ‘22: Composers and Performers to Watch.” A serial chamber musician, Paul currently writes and performs as a member of the viola and cello duo Ayane & Paul and the quartet-collective Owls. Wiancko performs on a 2010 Mario Miralles violoncello and resides in Brooklyn, NY. He enjoys woodworking and never travels without a tenkara fishing rod. About Only Ever Us, he writes: “This piece is an excuse to gather. It is a reason to know someone better and a chance to share a moment with them. It is an opportunity to listen, chat, and perhaps consider that in this us-versus-them world, we are free to redraw the boundary of us at any time to include more them.” Only Ever Us is a modular string quartet/quintet/sextet/septet: any rendition should include, at minimum, a standard quartet. This quartet formation may either perform alone or augment itself with any combination of ‘auxiliary’ parts (Violin 3, Viola 2, and/or Violoncello 2) to form one of many possible quintet, sextet, or septet configurations—each with its own perspective and unique musical interactions.
—
The Kronos Performing Arts Association is grateful to the many individuals and institutions who have supported Kronos’ Fifty for the Future, including Peggy Dorfman & the Ralph I. Dorfman Family Fund, David and Evelyne Lennette, Andrea Abernethy Lunsford, Mai Family Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, Marjorie Randolph,Telluray Foundation, Ann Hatch – Tin Man Fund, and Gottfried and Janet Tittiger.
KPAA is grateful for the generous support of Kronos’ Fifty for the Future Lead Partner, Carnegie Hall, and Legacy Partners Aga Khan Music Programme, The Arts Center at New York University Abu Dhabi, Cal Performances / University of California, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Cornish College of the Arts, Holland Festival, Kaufman Music Center’s Face the Music, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts / University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Oakland School for the Arts, The Performing Arts Center at SUNY Purchase, ProQuartet Centre Européen de Musique de Chambre, Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Serious / Barbican, String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam, Texas Performing Arts Association at the University of Texas at Austin, and Washington Performing Arts.
A complete listing of funders and partners may be found here.
