Kronos Quartet: A Beginner's Guide

Has there ever been another artist or group more ready, willing and able to travel between genres, through time and across international and cultural boundaries than the Kronos Quartet? It’s where the heart, soul and curiosity of founder and violinist David Harrington has taken him, ever since he was a teen in 1960s Seattle, skipping his homework to explore traditional classical quartet repertoire with long-haired peers. “There was a disconnect,” he recalls, “between the music that seemed available to play, on the one hand, and on the other, the feeling in our society and what it felt like to be a young musician.” In 1973, Harrington heard a radio broadcast of George Crumb’s Black Angels, which for the young violinist put into play much of what he’d been feeling and seeking: the demands on the string players for alternative approaches to their music-making, the doubling on various percussive instruments (and on crystal glasses), and its evocation of the sociopolitical fabric of the day, Crumb’s piece carrying echoes of the still-raging Vietnam War. A goal of performing this and similar pieces led Harrington to form the first iteration of Kronos, which debuted at North Seattle Community College (with a programme including Bartók, Webern and Hindemith) and relocated later in the decade to Binghamton, New York before settling in San Francisco, where they are still based. There were several personnel changes in these early years, with the ensemble’s longest-lived iteration – Harrington and John Sherba on violins, Hank Dutt on viola and Joan Jeanrenaud on cello — established by the time of their debut album, 1979’s String Quartets by Dane Rudhyar.

From the start, Harrington felt that “our job is to create a place for experiences with symbolic statements that can perhaps tilt things just a little bit, but are also going to feel like it’s wonderful fun.” He acknowledges that “without Haydn [known as the father of the quartet] – without the four instruments of the quartet – what we are all doing wouldn’t have happened.” But when Kronos were asked to perform compositions by the 18th-century forefather of chamber music at the Esterházy Palace, where Haydn had served as court musician, Harrington turned instead to “our inner Haydn,” which took the form of the 30s country blues song ‘Last Kind Words’, by Geeshie Wiley.

In the mid-80s, Kronos Quartet recorded two jazz-based albums, playing the music of Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans, while gradually attracting the attention of new music composers such as Terry Riley, Philip Glass, John Zorn and Steve Reich, several of whom had never before written chamber music, which under their guidance was now evolving and finding popularity among younger generations. Kronos gained a reputation for their technical command of complex timing, tempi and voicings, inspiring Harrington, in 1990, to finally tackle Crumb’s work and record the album Black Angels.

The ensemble’s ear for music from around the world and their mission to give global composers and performers access to Western audiences resulted in the recording of Pieces of Africa in 1992. Despite Gramophone’s scepticism of the album’s legitimacy as chamber music, it topped Billboard’s classical and world music charts. “At the time, I did not know a single female composer, and I knew there was no such thing as an African string quartet,” Harrington points out. The Kronos Performing Arts Association, headed by the ensemble’s manager Janet Cowperthwaite, increasingly commissioned compositions for Kronos, including three quartets by Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, rooted in Polish folk song. Kronos’ activist consciousness was channelled in the commissioning and recording of Bob Osterling: All the Rage, positioning loops and samples alongside the Quartet’s playing in protest of California Governor Pete Wilson’s vetoing of pro-gay legislation, as well as in Steve Reich: WTC 9/11, commemorating the World Trade Center’s destruction, integrating Kronos’ performance with spoken word.

In the later 1990s, the Quartet were often joined by additional instrumentalists and composers on stage and in the studio, allowing them to expand their global repertoire. Collaborators included Astor Piazzolla on bandoneón, and many female artists such as pipa virtuoso Wu Man, Serbia’s Aleksandra Vrebalov and vocalist Angélique Kidjo, from Benin. Expanding touring itineraries in the new millennium provided opportunities for valuable in-person learning with virtuosi in diverse locations, including a session with Taraf de Haïdouks founder Nicolae Neacşu. “He taught me to tie a loose string into the G string of the violin and have it sound like it’s speaking while you play,” Harrington recounts. “Then while I was a mentor in Banff in 2023, I was able to teach a younger player how to do this.” Recordings reached towards the music of India and the Middle and Far East, with 2009’s Floodplain focusing on ‘cultures based in areas surrounded by water and prone to catastrophic flooding.’ These expeditions were furthered by the engagement of innovative arrangers (such as Jacob Garchik and Stephen Prutsman) and artisans providing the Quartet with specially-designed instruments. Kronos expanded the practice of having its members double on a battery of percussion items, and sometimes vocalise, enhancing their reputation as purveyors of delightful, surprising concerts.

Though kaleidoscopic in their development, Kronos had proven unusually stable in its roster, providing security, companionship and challenge to its four long-time members for almost the entirety of their professional careers. Cellist Jeanrenaud finally departed the group in 1999 because she was “eager for something new” and was contending with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. The cello chair passed over the next couple of decades from Jennifer Culp to Jeffrey Zeigler to Sunny Yang to Paul Wiancko, who in 2023 became the first member of Kronos also functioning as an active composer. Wiancko, three decades younger than his new colleagues, was first recruited by Kronos as a contributor to their 50 for the Future project, launched in 2015 to assemble a body of work accessible to worldwide quartets online free of charge. In 2003, the ensemble’s Under 30 project had begun the commissioning and mentoring of younger composers. Throughout their history, Kronos have been diligent about presenting their music in person at schools and colleges.

The ensemble has stayed current in the new millennium with the evolution of electronics. A bountiful crop of new commissions set Kronos to making music with old telephones, fence wire and noisy toys, as well as bowing and percussing their strings with sticks or paper. Recordings earned Kronos three Grammys.

The group’s 50th anniversary season included a global tour, concluding back home this June with the annual Kronos Festival at the SFJAZZ Center. The four-day programme premiered impressive compositions by two teenage women and represented a variety of cultures, including a breathtaking series of songs by Canadian throat singer Tanya Tagaq, who praised the Quartet for inviting her and for “being a guiding light to so many different artists.” On closing night, Kronos screened an imaginative and endearing documentary about them, by Sam Green and Joe Bini, titled A Thousand Thoughts. The film’s conclusion signalled the final performances by Kronos veterans Hank Dutt and John Sherba, in a speedy locomotive take on the bluegrass breakdown ‘Orange Blossom Special’. It was announced that violist Ayane Kozasa and violinist Gabriela Diaz would join Kronos later in the year. Wiancko, who’ll remain with Harrington, thanked him and the retirees “for your risk-taking.” “My reason,” he stated, “is to make the world better and to lessen suffering. And never in my life would I have imagined you could do that through chamber music.” The audience cheered, as they did the breaking news that the US Library of Congress were acquiring Kronos’ archives and appointing Harrington to its Kluge Chair in Modern Culture.

This article originally appeared in the August/September 2024 issue of Songlines. Never miss an issue – subscribe today