The San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association presents Kronos Festival, Kronos’ seventh annual music festival, at SFJAZZ Center April 7-9, 2022.

This year’s festival underscores Kronos’ commitment to creative collaboration, an inclusive repertoire, and deep, longstanding relationships with artists around the world. The three-day celebration features five world premieres; iconic works from Kronos’ extensive repertoire; a birthday celebration; and three compositions commissioned as part of Kronos’ groundbreaking Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire project. Composer, arranger and trombonist Jacob Garchik, who has enjoyed a long and fruitful artistic relationship with the ensemble, is this year’s artist in residence.

This year’s world premieres are by Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, Jonathan Berger, inti figgis-vizueta, Mahsa Vahdat and Soo Yeon Lyuh. Special guests include writer and performer Rinde Eckert, multi-instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, haegeum master Lyuh, singer Vahdat and pipa virtuoso Wu Man.

“The Kronos Festival celebrates the expansion of creativity,” says Kronos Founder and Artistic Director David Harrington. “We pay tribute to those with a strengthened resolve to help shape our musical future despite all odds. Surrounded by friends, we hope the festival energizes our audience. Live music can be a microcosm as we listen to the future unfold.”

“I have had the immense privilege of working with the Kronos Quartet for the past 16 years,” Garchik said. “Together we have created over 110 musical works from around the world. I have always enjoyed working behind the scenes and collaborating with a wide range of artists, but I am thrilled to have my own chance to be in the spotlight. with Kronos Festival.”

Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK, a free, GPS-enabled public art piece in Golden Gate Park that launched in 2021 as part of the Kronos Festival, will also be underway in Golden Gate Park. And the intimate Kronos Labs festival series returns on Saturday afternoon.

Thursday, April 7, 2022, Program #1, 7:30 p.m.

Kronos Quartet with special guest Jacob Garchik

Kronos Festival 2022 kicks off on Thursday, April 7 with the world premiere of Janety, a joyful work by Malian singer Griot Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté written for the 40th birthday of KPAA CEO and Kronos Director Janet Cowperthwaite. A member of the famous Trio Da Kali ensemble, Diabaté’s work is inspired by tegere tulon, a tradition of clapping songs and dances created spontaneously by girls in rural villages in southern Mali. Janety features a guest band of young musicians and pays tribute to the leader and stalwart defender of Kronos. Artist-in-Residence Jacob Garchik joins the trombone and tuba quartet for Upon a Star, a suite arranged by Garchik based on music from Steven Spielberg’s films. The program concludes with Cadenza on the Night Plain, a 13-movement work written for Kronos by one of the ensemble’s most prolific and creative collaborators, Terry Riley. Music critic Kyle Gann called Cadenza on the Night Plain “an archetypal Kronos piece”.

Friday, April 8, 2022, 7:30 p.m., Program #2, 7:30 p.m.

Kronos Quartet with special guests Rinde Eckert and Vân-Ânh Võ

On Friday, April 8 at 7:30 p.m., Kronos unveils two of the latest works published as part of Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, an unprecedented quartet commissioning, performance, education and legacy project at strings that was designed and developed. edited by Cowperthwaite. Works include Maduswara by Indonesian composer and singer Gamelan Peni Candra Rini, and YanYanKliYan Senamido #2 by Beninese singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo. Also on the program are Oasis, a one-movement composition by Azerbaijani composer Franghiz Ali-Zadeh and one of Kronos’ signature works, and Flow, a haunting work by Laurie Anderson arranged by Jacob.

To conclude the program, the world premiere of My Lai Suite, adapted from the acclaimed opera by composer Jonathan Berger and librettist Harriet Scott Chessman about Hugh Thompson, the army helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War who is courageously intervened in the massacre of unarmed Vietnamese civilians by the US military. Special guest vocalist Rinde Eckert and master instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Võ perform.

Saturday April 9, 2022, Program #3, 7:30 p.m.

Kronos Quartet with special guests Soo Yeon Lyuh, Mahsa Vahdat and Wu Man

Program #3 closes the Kronos Festival 2022 with three world premieres written for Kronos. inti figgis-vizueta’s music by yourself is a piece about “connecting to people who are and are not here yet”. Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat performs in Where Is Your Voice, a new original song arranged by Aftab Darvishi. Korean-American composer and haegeum master Soo Yeon Lyuh takes the stage in Tattoo (Extended Version), the artist’s powerful response to a heartbreaking incident in Berkeley, California, in which someone shot a gun on his car. Orion: China by Philip Glass, written for the Cultural Olympiad in Athens in the summer of 2004, contemplates the relationship between the Earth and the constellations as interpreted by the many cultures of the world, and features pipa virtuoso Wu Man.

The program also includes Quartet No. 4 by nonagenarian Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, one of Kronos’ signature works in his extensive body of commissions; and Jacob Garchik’s Storyteller, a 16-minute work featuring archival recordings of the legendary Pete Seeger singing, speaking and playing his banjo. Storyteller was one of the works on the 2020 recording Long Time Passing: Kronos Quartet and Friends Celebrate Pete Seeger, a tribute to the late folk musician and activist.

Saturday April 9: Kronos Labs, 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Kronos Labs is offering a free performance at 2 p.m. with student musicians from across the Bay Area performing works from Fifty for the Future, including several arrangements by Garchik. At 5 p.m., Garchik is joined by an all-star band of the Bay Area’s finest brass for The Heavens: The Atheist Gospel Trombone Choir, a nine-part suite for trombones, tuba and drums.

Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK in Golden Gate Park, Ongoing, Free

SOUNDWALK is a GPS-enabled public art piece that uses music, composed by Reid and performed by Kronos and others, to illuminate the natural environment. SOUNDWALK is attuned to its environment and was created to encourage a deeper connection with nature and the exploration of iconic spaces. Listeners access the work via a free smartphone app and experience a dynamic soundscape meticulously mapped onto the park’s landscape and attractions.

PROGRAM AND TIMES

Thursday, April 7

PROGRAM #1, 7:30 p.m., Auditorium Miner

Kronos Quartet with special guest Jacob Garchik

Jacob Garchik / Upon A Star * Bay Area Premiere with Jacob Garchik, trombone, tuba

Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Tegere Tulon: V. Janety **

world premiere with Jacob Garchik and student musicians

Terry Riley / Cadenza on the Night Plain * Introduction

Cadence: Violin I

Where was the wisdom when we went West?

Cadence: alto

Walk of the Old Timers refrigeration division; The elders organize a spring festival;

Walk towards more serious things

Cadence: Violin II

Rolling Thunder Tuning

Black Buffalo Woman’s Night Cry

Cadence: Cello

Gathering of the Spiral Clan; Captain Jack has the last word

friday april 8

PROGRAM #2, 7:30 p.m., Auditorium Miner

Kronos Quartet with special guests Rinde Eckert and Vân-Ânh Vanessa Võ

Peni Candra Rini (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Maduswara **

Franghiz Ali-Zadeh / Oasis *

Angelique Kidjo (arr. Jacob Garchik) / YanYanKliYan Senamido #2 **

Laurie Anderson (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Flow +

My Lai Suite * world premiere

Adapted from My Lai: An opera for tenor, string quartet and Vietnamese instruments

Jonathan Berger, composer

Harriet Scott Chessman, librettist

Rinde Eckert, vocals

Vân-Ánh Võ, t’rưng, ​​​​đàn bầu, đàn tranh

saturday april 9

KRONOS LABORATORIES

2:00 p.m., Joe Henderson Lab

Kronos Lab / Fifty for the Future of Kronos with Jacob Garchik

Performances by student musicians from several Bay Area schools, hosted by Jacob Garchik

5:00 p.m., Joe Henderson Lab

Kronos Lab / The Heavens by Jacob Garchik: The Atheist Gospel Trombone Choir

From the mind of Jacob Garchik comes an astonishing and staggering testimony to the power of reason. Garchik leads an all-star band of the Bay Area’s finest horns performing a nine-part suite for trombones, tuba and drums.

PROGRAM #3, 7:30 p.m., Auditorium Miner

Kronos Quartet with special guests Soo Yeon Lyuh, Mahsa Vahdat and Wu Man

Soo Yeon Lyuh / Tattoo (extended version) *world premiere

with special guest Soo Yeon Lyuh, haegeum

Mahsa Vahdat (arr. Aftab Darvishi) / Where Is Your Voice * world premiere

with special guest Mahsa Vahdat, vocals

Philip Glass (arr. Michael Riesman) / Orion: China +

with special guest Wu Man, pipa

inti figgis-vizueta / music by yourself * world premiere

Sofia Gubaidulina / Quartet No. 4*

Jacob Garchik / Storyteller *

Additional programming to come. Program subject to change.