Country of Origin United States
Description In this three-night engagement during the 1996 Next Wave Festival, Kronos Quartet presented three evenings, each exploring very different themes.
Aural Histories presented works by six composers who had drawn inspiration from folk music. Isván Márta’s piece was inspired by a folk song collecting trip he took to a tiny village of 400 where an isolated people known as the Csangos spoke an archaic Hungarian. Jon Hassel’s piece used Brazilian percussion instruments from a coastal area of Brazil. Jack Body composed a piece based on a recording he’d made of an Indonesian peddler hawking candy. Mo Wuping’s piece used traditional Chinese instruments. Osvaldo Golijov composed a work based on Jewish folk traditions, incorporating Klezmer clarinet. And Ken Benshoof, a composer with a long relationship to Kronos (he composed the first piece ever written for them), drew on Celtic music.
The second program, Medieval to Modern, spanned works by Hildegarde of Bingen (12th century), Perotin (12-13th centuries), Henry Purcell (17th century), and 20th century composers Ben Johnston, John Cage, Henryk Gorecki, Arvo Pärt, Harry Partch, and Judith Shatin.
In the third evening, American Mavericks, Kronos played works by these highly individualistic American composers: John Zorn, Mark Feldman, Tim Berne, Lois V. Vierk, and Terry Riley.
Identifier 1996f.00594
