Kronos Quartet performs at the McAninch Arts Center outside Chicago tonight. On the program are pieces from the group's latest release, Floodplain, including Aleksandra Vrebalov's ... hold me, neighbor, in this storm ..., which the Seattle Weekly recently called a "compelling, emotionally far-ranging tone poem." The A.V. Club Chicago spoke with Kronos's David Harrington about introducing audiences to new sounds. "The things that we do," he says, "are, hopefully, the beginnings of explorations for other people."
Kronos Quartet performs at the McAninch Arts Center at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, outside Chicago, tonight. On the program are an excerpt from Terry Riley's Salome Dances for Peace; works by Bryce Dessner, Missy Mazzoli, John Zorn, and Café Tacuba; and pieces from the group's latest Nonesuch release, Floodplain, including Ramallah Undergound's Tashweesh and Aleksandra Vrebalov's ... hold me, neighbor, in this storm ... Following a recent performance at Seattle's Kirkland Performing Arts Center, the Seattle Weekly considered the latter "compelling, emotionally far-ranging tone poem" a highlight of the program.
In a preview of tonight's concert, The A.V. Club Chicago's David Wolinsky spoke with Kronos's artistic director and violinist David Harrington. The two discuss Kronos's long tradition of branching out beyond the confines of genre and introducing its audiences to new and varied sounds, finding connections from Stravinksy to Hendrix.
"You hear something, and then you get pulled," Harrington tells Wolinsky, "and you start to explore. So a lot of times, the things that we do are, hopefully, the beginnings of explorations for other people."
Read the extensive interview at avclub.com.
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Chicago Reader's Peter Margasak strikes a similar tone in his concert preview recommending tonight's show. While the group's recordings may often be classified under a "classical" rubric, its "repertoire has never been purely classical," writes Margasak, "and in the past decade they've tackled so much music outside the usual realm of the string quartet, from jazz to pop to folk to various regional traditions, that it's safe to say the only things consistently classical about them are their instrumentation and technique." Read more at chicagoreader.com.
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For more information Kronos Quartet's upcoming performances, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
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