After a year’s hiatus, Kronos Performing Arts Association’s Kronos Festival returns June 11–18, expanding the annual San Francisco–based event into the virtual sphere with free online presentations: world premieres; many of Kronos’ signature works, including music by Clint Mansell, George Crumb, Frank Zappa, Terry Riley, and Vladimir Martynov; and pieces commissioned for Kronos’ Fifty for the Future project. The festival also features an all-ages program and a series of short films. Kronos will also headline composer Ellen Reid’s Soundwalk, a self-guided, GPS-enabled public art work, in Golden Gate Park.
After a year’s hiatus, Kronos Performing Arts Association’s Kronos Festival returns June 11–18, 2021, expanding the annual San Francisco–based event into the virtual sphere with eight online presentations, including ten world premieres. All streams will be available free of charge—at kronosquartet.org and on Facebook and YouTube—and will remain online for three months.
Kronos Festival features works by more than twenty guest performers and highlights the work of Kronos’ artistic collaborators and community partners. Art, activism, and the fight for civil rights are key themes in Kronos’ works, represented at the festival in pieces by Sahba Aminikia, John Coltrane, Nicole Lizée, Bill Morrison, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Eiko Otake, Pete Seeger, Valerie Soe, Vân-Ánh Võ, and Zachary James Watkins. Many of Kronos’ signature works are featured, including Clint Mansell’s "Lux Aeterna" from Darren Aronofsky’s film Requiem for a Dream, "God-music" from George Crumb‘s Black Angels, Frank Zappa’s None of the Above, Terry Riley’s "One Earth, One People, One Love" from Sun Rings, and Vladimir Martynov’s The Beatitudes. Also featured are eight pieces that were commissioned as part of Kronos’ Fifty for the Future project. And in a tribute to its hometown of San Francisco, Kronos will headline composer Ellen Reid’s Soundwalk, a self-guided, GPS-enabled public art work, which will make its Bay Area debut in Golden Gate Park on June 12.
The ten world premieres include compositions by Sahba Aminikia, Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, Nicole Lizée, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Mahsa Vahdat, and Vân-Ánh Võ. Along with three forty-five-minute concerts, June 11, 16, and 18, this year’s festival features Kronos Festival Kids!, a thirty-minute presentation for audiences of all ages on June 13.
Rather than capturing a continuous concert, each Kronos Festival program is a mosaic of original films and performances. Additionally, Kronos will present short films between June 13 and 17, with contributions from filmmakers like Sam Green (a world premiere), Bill Morrison, and Valerie Soe, constituting a mini-festival within the festival. The programs will also feature new short films from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, created to illuminate and contextualize specific musical works.
For more information on the 2021 Kronos Festival and to access the full schedule of events, visit kronosquartet.org.
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