Zankel Hall Carnegie Hall
New York, New York
January 27, 2023
KRONOS QUARTET
David Harrington, violin John Sherba, violin Hank Dutt, viola Sunny Yang, cello
Angélique Kidjo (arr. Jacob Garchik) / YanYanKliYan Senamido #2 ** Peni Candra Rini (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Maduswara ** with special guest Peni Candra Rini, vocals, rebab Aftab Darvishi / Daughters of Sol ** NY Premiere Soo Yeon Lyuh / Yessori (Sound from the Past) ** with special guest Soo Yeon Lyuh, haegeum Mazz Swift / She Is A Story, Herself * NY Premiere Eiko Otake / eyes closed * World Premiere with special guest Eiko Otake, movement artist
INTERMISSION
Mary Kouyoumdjian / I Haven’t the Words + NY Premiere Vân-Ánh Võ / Adrift * NY Premiere with special guest Vân Ánh Võ, đàn Bầu Nicole Lizée / ZonelyHearts * NY Premiere
Opening Credits Part I Part II PhoneTap + CCTV Static Interference
PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Updated: 10/24 /22
* Written for Kronos ** Written for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire + Arranged for Kronos
Kronos Quartet
P. O. Box 225340 San Francisco, CA 94122 5340 Tel: 415/731 3533 Fax: 415/664 7590 www.kronosquartet.org www.facebook.com/kronosquartet
Peni Candra Rini (b. 1983) Maduswara (2020)
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976)
Peni Candra Rini is the daughter of a master puppeteer from East Java Indonesia, and one of few female contemporary composers, songwriters, poets, and vocalists who performs sinden, a soloist female style of gamelan singing. Strongly committed to preserving and sharing the musical traditions of her country, Candra Rini has created many musical compositions for vocals, gamelan, and karawitan, and has collaborated with various artists worldwide, including Katsura Kan, Noriko Omura, Aki Bando, Kiyoko Yamamoto (JP), Found Sound Nation New York, Elena Moon Park (USA), Ali Tekbas (Turkey), Mehdi Nassouli (Morocco), Asma Ghanem (Palestine), Rodrigo Parejo (Spain), among many others.
Candra Rini has collaborated with various gamelan groups from all over the world, and has performed at major festivals including Mascot SIPA Solo International Performing Arts 2016, TEDx Ubud 2019, Big Ears Festival 2019, Mapping Melbourne 2018 Multicultural Art Festival, International Gamelan Festival 2018 Surakarta, Indonesian Tong Festival Festival 2018 in The Hague, Holland Festival 2017, WOMADelaide festival 2014 in Adelaide, Spoleto Dei Duo Mondi Festival 2013, and Lincoln Center White Light Festival 2011. Her recorded albums include Ayom (2019), Timur (2018), Agni (2017), Mahabharata Kurusetra War (2016), Daughter of the Ocean (2016), Bhumi (2015), Sekar (2012), and Bramara (2010).
In 2012, Candra Rini completed an artist residency at the California Art Institute with funding from the Asian Cultural Council. During that time, she appeared as a guest artist at eight American universities and participated in master classes with vocal master Meredith Monk. In addition to this extensive work as a performer, Candra Rini is also a lecturer in the Karawitan Department, a Doctoral Candidate for Musical Arts at the Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) in Surakarta.
About Maduswara, Peni Candra Rini writes:
“Javanese society’s consideration of what is in vogue has changed, and the decline of appreciation in the traditional arts has had a major impact on the existence of the female Javanese singer (sindhen); it has impacted both the singer and the audience. Today’s listeners of karawitan has become accustomed to the phenomena of nggantung rebab, which is found in the coasts of island Java far from the palaces (keraton). The phenomena of nggantung rebab is when people expect karawitan concerts to offer musical pieces (gending) with hard rhythms, songs that follow a fast tempo like those found in discotheques where visitors get drunk. The rebab is a subtle and old fashioned instrument and is beginning to be eliminated, reflecting the move away from more delicate presentation gending. The impact is a generational gap where younger singers feel they do not need to study the classical vocabulary because it is rarely used.
“This discourse continues in contemporary karawitan, as found in campursari music, which plays the melodies of karawitan with MIDI instruments and electric keyboards. This is because those instruments are very practical, easy to carry, and also cheaper than a gamelan set.
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Campursari dominated the scene in the 90s and 2000s, pioneered by the late Manthous through CSGK (Campur Sari Gunung Kidul), and many commercial recordings were made and sold during that time. But many believe that campursari fails to represent the classical gamelan repertoire. Out of campursari came a generation of pesinden who were considered to have below average singing ability because the sound they produced were discordant in tone to and not in accordance with the rules of Javanese gamelan. Because of this, sindhen singing campursari are not taken seriously in art schools, a serious problem considering diversity is already lacking in those schools.
“The emergence of social media has given pesindhen access to self promotion, which the singers now readily use. But what appears on social media often does not represent real life, and are not true achievements or true representations of the singer’s abilities. Sindhen now have the added pressure of celebrity culture, and are adored for beauty and ability to dance on stage, with flawless make-up and frenzied lights, and her duties as a singer and orator of the poetry of life takes second fiddle.
“Maduswara was arranged to encourage this generation of pesindhen to realize their duty as the conveyor of the universal values of life because, whether they are aware or not, these artists shape the spirit of the nation.”
Aftab Darvishi (b. 1987 ) Daughters of Sol (2017 )
Aftab Darvishi was born in Tehran, Iran in 1987. She started playing violin at age five, and as she grew older, she got in touch with other instruments like the kamancheh (Iranian string instrument) and classical piano. Darvishi has studied Music Performance at University of Tehran, Composition at Royal Conservatory of The Hague and Composing for film and Carnatic Music (South Indian music) at Conservatory of Amsterdam.
Darvishi has presented her music in various festivals in Europe and Asia working with various ensembles. She has also attended various artistic residencies, such AiEP Contemporary Dance Company (Milan), Kinitiras studio (Athens), and Akropoditi Dance center (Syros). She is a former member of KhZ ensemble; an experimental electronic ensemble with supervision of Yannis Kyriakides that has performed in various festivals such as the Holland Festival. After her graduation, she has been regularly invited as a guest lecturer at the University of Tehran.
In 2014, Darvishi was short listed for the 20th Young Composer meeting in Apeldoorn (Netherlands) and in 2015, she won the Music Education award from Listhus Artist Residency to hold workshops for presenting Persian music to music teachers at Music School of Fjallabyggd, Iceland. In 2016, Darvishi was awarded the prestigious Tenso Young Composers Award for her piece And the world stopped Lacking you... for a cappella choir.
About Daughters of Sol, Aftab Darvishi writes:
“Daughters of Sol is inspired by a poem by Ahmad Shamloo who is a Contemporary Iranian poet. This piece contains gentle transitions and detailed changes, which leads to dissolving of different shades and colors. It is a constant evolution between shadows and lights. It is a journey about conveying gentle circular movements, which I think it resembles cycles of life. We evolve and dissolve in gentle and harsh conversions. We change colors, yet we tend to go back to our roots despite of our differences.”
Angélique Kidjo (b. 1960 )
YanYanKliYan Senamido (2020 )
Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976)
As a performer, Angélique Kidjo’s striking voice, stage presence, and fluency in multiple cultures and languages have won respect from her peers and expanded her following across national borders. Kidjo has cross-pollinated the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America.
After exploring the roads of Africa’s diaspora through Brazil, Cuba and The United States and offering a refreshing and electrifying take on the Talking Heads album Remain In Light (called “Transformative” by the New York Times, “Visionary” by NPR Music, “Stunning” by Rolling Stone, and “one of the year’s most vibrant albums” by the Washington Post), the French Beninese singer is now reflecting on an icon of the Americas, celebrated salsa singer Celia Cruz. Kidjo’s album Celia (Verve/Universal Music France) divests itself of the glamour to investigate the African roots of the Cuban born woman who became the “Queen” of salsa.
Kidjo’s star studded album DJIN DJIN won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Album in 2008, and her album OYO was nominated for the same award in 2011. In January 2014 Kidjo’s first book, a memoir titled Spirit Rising: My Life, My Music (Harper Collins) and her twelfth album, EVE (Savoy/429 Records), were released to critical acclaim. EVE later went on to win the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album in 2015, and her historic, orchestral album Sings with the Orchestre Philharmonique Du Luxembourg (Savoy/429 Records) won a Grammy for Best World Music Album in 2016. Kidjo has gone on to perform this genre bending work with several international orchestras and symphonies including the Bruckner Orchestra, The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Philharmonie de Paris. Her collaboration with Philip Glass, IFÉ: Three Yorùbá Songs, made its US debut to a sold out concert with the San Francisco Symphony in June 2015. In 2019, Kidjo helped Philip Glass premiere his latest work, Symphony #12 “Lodger,” a symphonic re imagining of the David Bowie album of the same name, at a sold out performance at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition to performing this new orchestral concert, Kidjo continues to tour globally performing the high energy concert she’s become famous for with her four-piece band.
Kidjo also travels the world advocating on behalf of children in her capacity as a UNICEF and OXFAM goodwill Ambassador. At the G7 Summit in 2019, President Macron of France named Kidjo as the spokesperson for the AFAWA initiative (Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa) to help close the financing gap for women entrepreneurs in Africa. She has also created her own charitable foundation, Batonga, dedicated to support the education of young girls in Africa.
About YanYanKliYan Senamido, Angélique Kidjo writes:
“In 2014, I recorded an album called EVE, a tribute to my late mother and to the women of Africa. A few groups of Beninese women sung the choruses of my songs. I recorded a song with just vocals and traditional percussion. The rhythm was really complex and typical from Benin.
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Once the song was finished, I felt something was missing and I had the idea to invite the Kronos Quartet who had great experiences working with African artists. The result, a piece called Ebile, was a revelation. They had captured the complexity of the Beninese polyrhythms and brought a great energy to the track.
“When the Quartet reached out to me for their Fifty for the Future initiative, I could not say no and decided to work on a piece inspired by traditional melodies from Benin. In Beninese traditional music, there is not a clear separation between melody and rhythm. Each percussion is playing a melodic pattern and each vocal melody had a very complex rhythm. I knew the Quartet would be able to play all these grooves and tight rhythms like a group of Africa percussion players would do. I hope YanYanKliYan Senamido will become, for future students, a brief introduction of the beautiful music of my country.”
Mary Kouyoumdjian (b. 1983)
I Haven’t the Words (2020 )
Mary Kouyoumdjian is a composer and documentarian with projects ranging from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. As a first generation Armenian American and having come from a family directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide, she uses a sonic palette that draws on her heritage, interest in music as documentary, and background in experimental composition to progressively blend the old with the new. She has received commissions for the Kronos Quartet, New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Bang on a Can, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alarm Will Sound, Roomful of Teeth, OPERA America, Beth Morrison Projects, the American Composers Forum/JFund, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, REDSHIFT, the Nouveau Classical Project, Music of Remembrance, Friction Quartet, Experiments in Opera, and Ensemble Oktoplus. Her documentary work was recently presented by the NY Philharmonic Biennial and her residencies include Alarm Will Sound, Roulette/The Jerome Fund, Montalvo Arts, and Exploring the Metropolis. Kouyoumdjian holds a D.M.A. and M.A. in Composition at Columbia University, an M.A. in Scoring for Film & Multimedia from New York University, and a B.A. in Composition from UC San Diego. Kouyoumdjian is a cofounder of the annual new music conference New Music Gathering and is on composition faculty at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and a lecturer at Columbia University.
About I Haven’t the Words, Kouyoumdjian writes:
“
I Haven’t the Words is a sonic journal entry from May 31, 2020, made while isolated in the early months of the pandemic, shortly after the horrific murder of George Floyd, and during a time in which the world seemed to spin towards its darkest corners. This is an arrangement made for the Kronos Quartet, transcribed from that particular morning’s improvisation at the piano and my own mental processing of the unspeakable.”
Nicole Lizée (b. 1973)
ZonelyHearts (2022)
Called “a brilliant musical scientist” (CBC), “breathtakingly inventive” (Sydney Times Herald, Australia), and lauded for “creating a stir with listeners for her breathless imagination and ability to capture Gen X and beyond generation” (Winnipeg Free Press), award winning composer and video artist composer Nicole Lizée creates new music from an eclectic mix of influences including the earliest MTV videos, turntablism, rave culture, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Alexander McQueen, thrash metal, early video game culture, 1960s psychedelia and 1960s modernism. She is fascinated by the glitches made by outmoded and well worn technology and captures these glitches, notates them and integrates them into live performance.
Lizée’s compositions range from works for orchestra and solo turntablist featuring DJ techniques fully notated and integrated into a concert music setting, to other unorthodox instrument combinations that include the Atari 2600 video game console, omnichords, stylophones, Simon™, vintage board games, and karaoke tapes. In the broad scope of her evolving oeuvre she explores such themes as malfunction, reviving the obsolete, and the harnessing of imperfection and glitch to create a new kind of precision.
In 2001 Lizée received a Master of Music degree from McGill University. After a decade and a half of composition, her commission list of over 50 works is varied and distinguished and includes the Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, the BBC Proms, the San Francisco Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Banff Centre, Bang On A Can, So Percussion, and numerous others.
Lizée was recently awarded the prestigious 2019 Prix Opus for Composer of the Year. In 2017 she received the SOCAN Jan. V. Matejcek Award. In 2013 she received the Canada Council for the Arts Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music. She is a two time JUNO nominee for composition of the year. She is a Lucas Artists Fellow (California) and a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow (Italy). In 2015 she was selected by acclaimed composer and conductor Howard Shore to be his protégée as part of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards. This Will Not Be Televised, her seminal piece for chamber ensemble and turntables, placed in the 2008 UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers’ Top 10 Works.
Lizée was the Composer in Residence at Vancouver’s Music on Main from 2016 18. She is a Korg Canada and Arturia artist.
About ZonelyHearts, Lizée writes:
“Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone: a singular series brimming with imagination and creativity that left an indelible impression on its audience. The tone and messaging inherent in the series were powerful, unrelenting, and often controversial but wholly relevant; and it remains relevant arguably more than ever today.
“ZonelyHearts does not sample content from the series but rather takes its cue from the tone and certain subject matter and messages - namely: mind control, censorship, surveillance, brainwashing, and revisionist history through altering and banning books. (These issues have a personal importance.) Perhaps its strongest message is freedom of expression and freedom to take artistic risks both of which resonate strongly with me.
“The sounds and visual elements from the Twilight Zone series have become iconic. From a compositional perspective, these elements are as appealing to me as any traditional member of the orchestra. Even Rod Serling’s voice in his narrations and introductions impart a unique timbre and musical inflection. In ZonelyHearts, specially created sounds and custom made devices are integrated to mirror and embody the spirit of the series in my own way. Part of the joy of experiencing the TV series is its ability to surprise, and I look to convey this element in my own work.
“Having discussed and planned this Twilight Zone inspired concept with Kronos for a few years now, I am pleased to finally present this first chapter or first episode with more to come!”
Nicole Lizée’s ZonelyHearts was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by Andrea Lunsford and the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English Centennial.
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Soo Yeon Lyuh (b. 1980)
Yessori (Sound from the Past) (2016 )
Soo Yeon Lyuh is a composer, improviser, and master of the haegeum, a two stringed Korean bowed instrument. Lyuh’s work strikes a balance between originality and tradition, borrowing and recontextualizing familiar gestures from Korean music. Her soundscape follows a logic of texture, pacing, feeling, and unexpected turns.
Lyuh’s music addresses present social issues. “Tattoo” (2021) is about fear and release, and responds to her own experience of a random shooting incident in California. “See You On The Other Side” (2021) was composed in response to the growing death toll of the coronavirus. “Moment 2020” (2020) has been dedicated to artists who struggle to stay creative during the pandemic. Lyuh’s music searches for connection and empathy in tumultuous times.
As a performer, Lyuh possesses flawless technique and a full command of the haegeum’s traditional repertoire. For 12 years, she was a member of South Korea’s National Gugak Center, which traces its roots to the 7th Century Shilla Dynasty and is Korea’s foremost institution for the preservation of traditional music. Lyuh has endeavored to weave authentic styles into new musical domains, relocating in 2015 to the San Francisco Bay Area and drawing inspiration from its dynamic improvised music scene. In 2017, Lyuh was awarded a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council to develop collaborations with Bay Area experimental musicians. She pushes herself not only to command a deep understanding of historical works, but also to negotiate challenging new ones.
Lyuh’s interest in improvisational music draws on Korean traditions lost to generations of performers. Although playing by ear is essential in bringing Korean folk music to life, preserving traditional performance has taken precedence over expanding the music’s improvisational vocabulary. In this respect Lyuh has ventured in a decidedly experimental direction. She was featured on the record Mudang Rock (2018) with drummer Simon Barker, guitarist Henry Kaiser, bassist Bill Laswell, and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. In December 2017, she played with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith at the Create Festival in San Francisco. She also played on a free improvisation recording, Megasonic Chapel (Fractal Music, 2015), featuring Kaiser, percussionist William Winant, pianist Tania Chen, and cellist Danielle DeGruttola. Meanwhile, Lyuh honed her improvisational skills by working with cellist Joan Jeanrenaud and sitting in on courses of pianist Myra Melford and avant garde icon Roscoe Mitchell.
In 2021, Lyuh began doctoral studies in composition at Princeton University. Previously, Lyuh earned her D.M.A. in Korean Traditional Music from Seoul National University. As a lecturer, she is sought after for her ability to impart valuable insight and intercultural understanding to those unfamiliar with Korean traditional music; her dissertation researched the changing role of haegeum in Korean orchestras beginning with early court traditions. As a visiting scholar at Mills College (2017-2018) and UC Berkeley (2015-2016), Lyuh taught established and emerging composers in the Bay Area about haegeum composition and techniques in order to create new repertoire for the instrument. Lyuh has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (2011 2012).
“I think that it will be impossible to conquer the haegeum in my lifetime,” says Lyuh. “That is because it becomes harder the more I play it. The instrument continues to reveal itself. It is full of untapped possibilities for improvisation and composition. I hope the nature of my music can make a bridge between cultures across times, and break down any walls.”
About Yessori, Lyuh writes:
“I was commissioned to write a piece that explores aspects of Korean traditional music. So I composed this piece and named it Yessori (옛소리), which means ‘sound from the past’ in Korean.
“I first got used to playing the piano and violin. So later when I encountered Korean traditional music, its relative pitch relationships and fluid rhythmic cycles felt completely new. But these strange yet beautiful qualities grew on me in the past two decades I fell in love with a two stringed bowed instrument called ‘haegeum.’ Yessori is my way of sharing this experience with the broadest possible audience.
“I composed Yessori in 3 steps: improvisation, transcription, and editing. I assumed the string quartet to be an extension of haegeum while also incorporating the distinctive techniques, vibrato, and articulations for string quartet. I used video recording as a kind of score, so that the Kronos members and I learn parts interactively.”
Eiko Otake (b. 1952) eyes closed (2022)
Born and raised in Japan and a resident of New York since 1976, Eiko Otake is a movement based, interdisciplinary artist. For more than 40 years she worked with her partner as Eiko & Koma. Since 2014, she has been performing her own solo project, A Body in Places. In 2017, she launched a multi-year Duet Project, an open-ended series of cross disciplinary, cross cultural, and cross generational experiments with a diverse range of artists both living and dead.
Eiko & Koma created their own choreography and presented their works worldwide, including many appearances at the American Dance Festival and BAM’s Next Wave Festival. Durational performance works were commissioned and presented by the Whitney Museum, the Walker Art Center, and MoMA. Eiko & Koma are the first collaborative pair to share a MacArthur Fellowship (1996) and the first Asian choreographers to receive the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award (2004) and the Dance Magazine Award (2006). They were individually honored by the Guggenheim Fellowship (1984) and the first Doris Duke Artist Awards (2012). Otake’s solo activity brought her an Art Matters grant (2015), a special Bessie citation (2016), the Anonymous Was a Woman Award (2016), and the Sam Miller Award for Performing Arts (2020).
Otake teaches courses in colleges, and uses movement as means of inquiry to further understanding of mass violence, nuclear disasters, and other environmental matters. Otake was a think tank fellow in The College of the Environment in 2017 2018, and an artist in residence at Wesleyan’s Cewnter for the Arts in 2020 2021. Her virtual studio (https://www.eikootake.org/virtual studio) presents her creative works and public discourses created during the COVID 19 pandemic.
About eyes closed, Eiko Otake writes:
“David Harrington invited me to join Kronos at Zankel Hall as a dancer in an evening of music by women. In turn, I’ve invited David, John, Hank, and Sunny to join my paper dance. Friends make exceptions to each other. That is comforting for our agitated minds.”
Mazz Swift (b. 1974)
She Is A Story, Herself (2022)
Mazz Swift is a composer, conductor, singer, bandleader, educator, and Juilliard trained violinist. Improvisation is a through line in their practice across genres and instrumental configurations, and can be found in most of their works.
As violinist and singer, Mx. Swift is no stranger to most of the world’s greatest stages including Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Müpa Budapest, and David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center in New York City. As composer, Swift’s works include commissions by The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity, and the Blaffer Foundation. As an educator, Swift has taught workshops in free improvisation and “conduction” (conducted improvisation) on six continents and is a performing member and teaching artist with the acclaimed Silkroad Ensemble.
Mazz is a 2021 United States Artist, and 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, continually creating orchestral compositions that involve Conduction, small ensemble works that almost always include improvisation, and solo works that are centered around protest and freedom songs, spirituals, and the Ghanaian concept of ‘Sankofa’: looking back to learn how to move forward.
About She Is A Story, Herself:
She Is A Story, Herself was written in honor of writer, scholar, and professor Andrea Lunsford, who in addition to decades of service on faculty at Stanford University and the Bread Loaf School of English, is also a Kronos board member and longtime champion of Kronos' work.
Mazz Swift writes:
“I asked each member of the quartet, and Ms. Lunsford herself, to tell me about the things that are important to them. The common threads I found in their responses were: Roots, Connection and Joyful Responsibility. It turns out we are kindred. This piece is about how we relate to each other and to ourselves. It is a gift to be able to breathe together. How amazing is it that, for right now, in this very moment, we all have enough time and are safe enough to sit here and listen...?
“Aṣẹ (Amen/Hear! Hear!)”
Mazz Swift’s She Is A Story, Herself was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English Centennial, the David Harrington Research and Development Fund, Janet Cowperthwaite, Hank Dutt, David Harrington, John Sherba, and Sunny Yang.
/Volumes/Music Harddrive Backup/DotDotDotMusic/Client Assets/Kronos Quartet/Carnegie Hall Jan 23/2023 01 27 Zankel/05 SWIFT She Is A Story, Herself.docxVân Ánh Vanessa Võ (b. 1975) Adrift (2020 )
A fearless musical explorer, Vân Ánh Võ is an award winning performer of the 16 string đàn tranh (zither) and an Emmy Award winning composer who has collaborated with Kronos Quartet, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and Yo Yo Ma. In addition to her mastery of the đàn tranh, she also uses the monochord (đàn bầu), bamboo xylophone (đàn t’rung), traditional drums (trống) and many other instruments to create music that blends the wonderfully unique sounds of Vietnamese instruments with other genres, and fuses deeply rooted Vietnamese musical traditions with fresh new structures and compositions.
Coming from a family of musicians and beginning to study đàn tranh (16 string zither) from the age of four, Van Anh graduated with distinction from the Vietnamese Academy of Music, where she later taught. In 1995, Vân Ánh won the championship title in the Vietnam National Đàn Tranh Competition, along with the first prize for best solo performance of modern folk music. In Hanoi, Vân-Ánh was an ensemble member of Vietnam National Music Theatre as well as a member of the traditional music group Đồng Nội Ensemble, which she founded and directed. She has since performed in more than fourteen countries and recorded many broadcast programs in and outside of Vietnam.
Since settling in San Francisco’s Bay Area in 2001, Vân Ánh has collaborated with musicians across different music genres to create new works, bringing Vietnamese traditional music to a wider audience. She has presented her music at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center (2012, 2014, 2016), Lincoln Center, NPR, Houston Grand Opera, Yerba Buena Performing Arts Center, UK WOMAD Festival, and London Olympic Games 2012 Music Festival. Vân Ánh has been a composer, collaborator and guest soloist with Kronos Quartet, Yo Yo Ma, Southwest Chamber Music, Oakland Symphony, Monterey Symphony, Golden State Symphony, Apollo Chamber Players, Flyaway Productions for aerial dance works, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, jazz and rap artists, and other World Music artists. Additionally, she co composed and arranged the Oscar® nominated and Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner for Best Documentary, Daughter from Danang (2002), the Emmy® Award winning film and soundtrack for Bolinao 52 (2008), and “Best Documentary” and “Audience Favorite” winner, A Village Called Versailles (2009).
After taking on an integral role in Kronos Quartet’s theatrical production “All Clear” in 2012, Vân Ánh premiered her first multi media production as Artistic Director, composer, and performer with “Odyssey” at the Kennedy Center in 2016. Together with vocalist Rinde Ecker, she and Kronos have also collaborated on Mỹ Lai (2015) by Jonathan Berger (music) and Harriet Scott Chessman (libretto), which has since been released as an album on Smithsonian Folkways (2022).
Her productions are unique in that they often include a community component leading up to her performances, including community workshops that are meant to further engage participants in the topic that has inspired Vân Ánh in the creation of these productions. Under President Obama's administration, Vân Ánh was the first Vietnamese artist to perform at the White House and received the Artist Laureate Award for her community contributions through the arts. Vân Ánh has also received project awards and support from Creative Work Fund, Center for Cultural
Innovations, Alliance for California Traditional Arts, City of San Jose, New Music USA, Mid Atlantic Foundation, Chamber Music America (for residency work), Zellerbach Family Foundation, California Art Council, San Francisco Commissions, and the Haas Fund.
About Adrift, Võ writes:
“Ba chìm, bảy nổi, chín lênh đênh” Vietnamese idiom.
"three waves up seven waves down nine waves just floating it is the ebb and flows of life"
“Our grandparents taught us that, in the river of life, if you can survive three rounds of drowning, seven rounds of floating, and nine rounds of staying adrift, nothing can kill you and you will be very strong in your mind, your will, and your heart.
“This idiom has been helping me to survive during this time when everything is seemingly frozen and we are all restricted, to be in a state of mind where resilience has shown to be the most important thing, so I can share my music and passions again.
“The left hand techniques the soul of Vietnamese traditional music on dan Bau in this piece has been reflected in the string quartet's parts as the players following each other's footsteps. On the other hand, dan Bau adapts the bowing technique from the quartet to be one step closer to be harmonized in sound and feeling. The cello plays the role of filler throughout the piece, almost like a person paddling in a boat to get us further.
“ADRIFT was written specially for our current circumstances, ones where we are unable to perform together live. Instead of combatting the woes of network latency, I've decided to embrace it by writing this piece in such a way where we "float" around the notes, drifting through the bars of music together, and with the concept of time signature founded on the feelings of the musicians and their own adaptations. This flexibility to drift together with oue partners creates the strength we need to keep evolving.”
Vân Ánh Vanessa Võ’s Adrift was written for the Kronos Quartet.