Kronos Quartet brings boundary-free mix of music to the Chan Centre
The renowned group’s mission is to carry diversity and social relevance to the concert hall
Kronos Quartet. Photo by Danica Taylor
Chan Centre presents Kronos Quartet on October 26 at the Chan Shun Concert Hall
THE KRONOS QUARTET makes its long-awaited return to Vancouver at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on October 26, but when we reach founding member David Harrington at home in San Francisco, he’s more focused on future projects—and on his own recent past.
“I’ve just returned from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.,” he explains, noting that earlier this year he was appointed that institution’s Kluge Chair in Modern Culture. “This means that I’ve spent four months in and out of Washington, getting to explore a number of topics that I think will inform the future work of Kronos. And what I noticed at the Library of Congress is that not only is it the largest library in the world, it’s also the largest set of potential rabbit holes. I’m fond of rabbit holes: you start looking at one place and then something else comes up, and you get taken on these amazing adventures of possibility and curiosity and wonderment.”
The affable violinist notes that after 50 years at the helm of the world’s most adventurous string quartet, he’s going to need 500 more to chase down his new herd of arcane fascinations. “I’m probably not going to get them,” he adds, laughing, “but that’s what I need.”
He and his Kronos colleagues will, however, have time to map a few warrens in advance of the 250th anniversary of the United States. “The Kronos birthday present is going to be a triptych,” Harrington reveals. “Panel number one will be Indigenous experience and Indigenous music culture. Panel number two will be African-American experience and culture and music, especially reflected through the work of [pioneering linguist] Lorenzo Dow Turner, the man who established that Gullah was a language. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Gullah Geechee culture and the importance of that area in American history, but Charleston and that area was where our Civil War began, and also just south of that was where the first enslaved people, in late 1861, began to experience freedom in the United States. Fast forward 80 years or so, and Lorenzo Dow Turner was recording the Gullah language and discovered not only are there 5,000 African words in that language from various languages of western Africa, but there was a song that had survived the Middle Passage. He recorded this song, which is the inspiration for panel number two of our triptych. And then panel number three is Chinese-American experience, especially in San Francisco’s Chinatown. That’s what I’ve been exploring at the Library of Congress.
“In fact,” he adds, “the first Chinese music ever recorded in the western hemisphere was in Chinatown in San Francisco. If you listen to those early Edison cylinders and just imagine being a person like me—you know, an Anglo—in 1905 listening to that music, it would have been as bracing and alarming as The Rite of Spring was for Parisians a few years later, I think.”
Listeners will have to wait until 2027 for the triptych to be unveiled, but its African-American component, at least, will be reflected in the program that Kronos has assembled for its return to the Chan Centre. First up will be Kronos associate Jacob Garchik’s arrangement of jazz maverick Sun Ra’s “Outer Spaceways Incorporated”, the title track of the multi-artist Sun Ra tribute that Harrington recently curated. Also on the bill will be Garchik’s take on John Coltrane’s 1963 lament “Alabama”, and a number of works either featuring or composed by rising-star composer Jerrilynn “Jlin” Patton. Emerging from Chicago’s “footwork” scene, which specializes in a fast-paced, abstract form of house music, Jlin’s approach melds populist tropes, cyborg rhythms, and occasional references to the artist’s African heritage.
“One of the things I do is pay a lot of attention to how composers talk about their music, and what they choose to say,” Harrington reports. “I read an interview with Jlin in Wire magazine some years ago and I immediately ran over to Amoeba Records in the Haight-Ashbury district and picked up her album, ’cause I just had to hear it after reading what she said. After that is when I called her and asked her to write for our 50 For the Future project, and she made Little Black Book for us.
“We’ve played Little Black Book at the Esterházy Palace, at the Barbican, and all over the place. I just love everything that that piece brings into Kronos, and it will be fun to play that with Jlin. I’m really looking forward to that.”
Harrington had a similarly visceral response to the work of Montreal-based Nicole Lizée, whose eight-part Black MIDI suite will conclude the concert. (The title refers to a kind of hyper-complicated computer music, not to African-American culture.)
“For me,” Harrington says, “Nicole is one of the towering creative persons that we have in our world culture right now. I just value her work so much, and we’ll be making a recording in December of the pieces that she’s written for Kronos so far. Black MIDI is absolutely incredible, as far as I’m concerned. It started its life as a piece for Kronos and orchestra, and we asked Nicole to make a version that we could take on tour with us—and that’s something that she is masterful with, creating a reduction that doesn’t feel like anything has been left out.”
Asked if this concert’s boundary-free mix of music reflects Kronos’s mission to bring diversity and social relevance to the concert hall while also celebrating and testing the quartet’s artistry, Harrington does not disagree.
“That is the challenge,” he concurs. “I think you put your finger on it right there. I just had a meeting this morning with someone who was not born in the United States but is now here and won’t be able to vote, and yet is very aware of what’s going on in our society, and she was saying much the same.That’s the kind of work she wants to be involved in, and I think that musicians are keeping our ears open for those moments of… Let’s say that there’s a kind of light that you get from certain works and certain really active imaginations—like Sun Ra. For me, we just had to start our concert with Sun Ra. We really didn’t have a choice. It just felt like ‘Okay, let’s go!’“
And there’s one more reason why the October 26 concert will be special for performers and audiences alike: it marks the Kronos Quartet’s first public appearance with its three new members, violinist Gabriela Díaz, violist Ayane Kozasa, and cellist Paul Wiancko.
There was no great rift, Harrington explains: cellist Sunny Yang wanted to spend more time with her family, while violist Hank Dutt and violinist John Sherba were ready for retirement after 46 and 45 years on the road, respectively. Everyone seems pleased with the outcome, especially the one remaining original member.
“What I’m noticing is that to be surrounded by three players that know the music of the Kronos Quartet as well as I do—who’ve grown up with it, kind of—is pretty inspiring,” Harrington says. “And challenging! I mean, I need to really practice to keep up with everybody, and I like that. And also there’s been an infusion of viewpoints and observations about where the world of music is at this point. Having that now as part of the daily experience of Kronos is a really good thing for me—and, if anything, I’m probably more on fire than I’ve ever been!”
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