Kronos Five Decades Commission Works

TEN NEW COMMISSIONED WORKS

The composers chosen for the ten KRONOS Five Decades commissions embody the quartet’s celebrated international focus, hailing from a total of five nations in North America, Southeast Asia, Central Europe, and the Middle East. They include acclaimed figures and emerging talents and encompass both longtime and first-time Kronos collaborators.

Born in 1981 in Tehran, Sahba Aminikia studied music composition at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory and received a Bachelor and Master of Music with honors from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His music has been performed at venues such as the Kennedy Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SFJAZZ Center, Le Poisson Rouge, and St. Ann’s Warehouse. His Kronoscommissioned Tar o Pood (‘Warp and Weft’) received the second place American Prize of 2015. He is the founder and artistic director of the annual Flying Carpet Children Music Festival (Mardin, Turkey, near the border of Syria).

Premiering April 4, 2024, Aminikia's commission for KRONOS Five Decades will be a 20-minute work for string quartet, with optional, original visuals created by Syrian artist Kevork Mourad. Chahar Fasl (Four Seasons) will be about Iran's Lake Urmia, the second largest salt lake in the world. Since 1995, due to global warming, severe drought and lack of management, the lake has started to gradually shrink, but the government is trying to revive this natural landscape and the lake has started to fill again. Aminikia's work will begin with Summer and end with Spring (Nowruz; Persian New Year), following the seasonal process of death and revival and paying homage to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons through a 21st-century Iranian lens.

Sahba Aminikia

Composer Bio >> sahbakia.com

inti figgis-vizueta

Originally from Washington, D.C. and now residing in New York City, inti figgisvizueta (b. 1993) focuses on close working relationships with a wide range of collaborators. Her musical practice attempts to reconcile historical aesthetics and experimental practices with trans and indigenous futures. Her music has been presented at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and many other prominent venues. The Washington Post called her music “raw, scraping yet soaring.” She received the 2020 ASCAP Foundation Fred Ho Award for “work that defies boundary and genre.”

Premiering November 8, 2023, figgis-vizueta's commission for KRONOS Five Decades will be a scaling 10- to 20-minute work that draws on the composer's dedicated research into PreColumbian Andean traditions, specifically the inclusion and uses of the Andean whistling jar. The piece will incorporate an array of modern-day whistling jars, metal thimbles, and metal mules to create a grand, interactive birdsong soundscape that will pair with Kronos strings.

Composer Bio >> inticomposes.com

Michael Gordon

Michael Gordon’s music merges subtle rhythmic invention with incredible power, embodying “the fury of punk rock, the nervous brilliance of free jazz and the intransigence of classical modernism” (Alex Ross, New Yorker). Over the past 30 years, Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio. Transcending categorization, this music represents the collision of mysterious introspection and brutal directness.

Premiering March 2, 2024, Gordon's commission for KRONOS Five Decades will be a modular suite of 25 one-minute-long pieces that takes inspiration from Haydn's scherzos to bring humor, fun, and laughter to Kronos' concerts. Each snippet will be accompanied by an optional video element, and can be presented individually, in various groupings, or as a complete collection, depending on the setting.

Composer Bio >> michaelgordonmusic.com

KRONOS Five Decades Project: Commissions

Mary Kouyoumdjian

A first generation Armenian-American, having come from a family directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide, Mary Kouyoumdjian 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. In addition to Kronos, Kouyoumdjian has been commissioned by organizations such as the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Bang on a Can. She holds a D.M.A and M.A. in composition from Columbia University.

Premiering June 2024, Kouyoumdjian's commission for KRONOS Five Decades will be a 10- to 15-minute work honoring the two sons of longtime Kronos board member, Ken Foster. Harnessing the strength of community and music, the piece will explore both the personal and the universal in this celebration of life and family.

Composer Bio >> marykouyoumdjian.com

Peni Candra Rini

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), Peni Candra Rini is strongly committed to preserving and sharing the musical traditions of her country. She has collaborated with artists worldwide, including Katsura Kan, Noriko Omura, Aki Bando, Kiyoko Yamamoto, Elena Moon Park, Ali Tekbas, Mehdi Nassouli, Asma Ghanem, and Rodrigo Parejo.

Premiering March 2, 2024, Candra Rini's commission for KRONOS Five Decades will be a multipart, 30-minute work that explores the precarity of the composer's native Indonesia as one of the most volcanically and seismically active regions on earth—a region that is also increasingly vulnerable to climate change. In a nod to cultural preservation, Segara Gunung will include shadow puppets, original artwork, and field recordings inspired by various musical environments and cultures across the archipelago.

Composer Bio >> penicandrarini.com

Gabriella Smith

Composer and environmentalist Gabriella Smith grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area creating music, hiking, and researching songbirds. Her music comes from a love of play, exploring new instrumental sounds and connecting listeners with nature. Recent highlights include the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s performances of Tumblebird Contrails (John Adams, conductor) and Aizuri Quartet’s Grammy-nominated recording of Carrot Revolution. Smith’s first full-length album, Lost Coast, was named one of NPR’s “26 Favorite Albums of 2021 (So Far)” and a “Classical Album to Hear Right Now” by the New York Times.

Premiering January 27, 2024, Smith's commission for KRONOS Five Decades will be a 30-minute work that seeks to answer some of the biggest questions at the intersection of music and activism today: How can we build a music community around climate solutions? How can we inspire people to find their role in the climate movement, to find joy in it, to make climate action an integral part of their lives? Itself an exercise in collective organizing, the work will incorporate conversations with longtime climate activists from around the world, and will call audiences to action in their own communities.

Composer Bio >> gabriellasmith.com

Trey Spruance

Trey Spruance is known for his composition/production work in his ensemble Secret Chiefs 3 and the avant-rock band Mr. Bungle. Raised in Eureka, CA, Spruance relocated to the Bay Area in 1990 and has performed over 500 concerts in 50+ countries in the past decade. He also orchestrates his music for concert ensembles, ranging from the New Music Works to the 61-piece Russian Traditional Orchestra. His music weaves together a diverse array of disciplines such as 20thcentury neoclassical, Iranian Dastgah, Pythagorean math, 1970s Italian horror films, 19thcentury French Occult, Black Metal, and Bollywood.

Premiering February 22, 2024, Spruance's commission for KRONOS Five Decades—a 20- to 25minute piece with the working title Digenes Akritas—will feature pre-recorded and manipulated Kronos sounds in the style of Luigi Nono, Iannis Xenakis, Mauricio Kagel, and others. Drawing from the Byzantine epic poem of the same name, Digenes ("two-blooded") draws inspiration from the experiences of people currently in exodus (from Syria, Ukraine, etc.) who have "two-blooded" origins in overlapping realms of geography, culture, and spirituality. The piece will explore our tendency to dismiss people we don't understand, as well as how those people, in their suffering and persistence, prove something vital.

Composer Bio >> kronosquartet.org

Mazz Swift

A composer, conductor, singer, bandleader, educator, and Juilliard-trained violinist, Mazz Swift combines elements of classical, folk, rock, jazz, free improvisation, and electronica in a signature musical genre. They have been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Banff Centre, among others, and have performed at Royal Albert Hall, Lincoln Center, and other prestigious venues. They perform and teach with the acclaimed Silkroad Ensemble and are also a Carnegie Hall Teaching Artist working with incarcerated mothers at Rikers Island and inmates at Sing Sing Penitentiary.

Premiering April 28, 2024, Swift's commission for KRONOS Five Decades will be a 15- to 20minute suite built on American slave songs and spirituals, featuring lush writing and improvisation elements. Drawing from their own experience as a violinist, vocalist, and freestyle artist, Swift’s second work for Kronos will center art as a form of protest, and will be rooted in the Ghanaian concept of Sankofa: looking back to learn how to move forward.

Composer Bio >> silkroad.org

Vân-Ánh Võ

Vietnamese-born Vân-Ánh Võ is an Emmy Award–winning composer and an award-winning performer on the 16-string đàn tranh (zither) and numerous other Vietnamese instruments. In both her composing and performing, she creates music that fuses deeply rooted Vietnamese musical traditions with fresh genres, structures, and compositions. Võ has collaborated with the likes of the Kronos Quartet, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and Yo-Yo Ma and has performed at prestigious venues and events including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the UK WOMAD Festival, and the London Olympic Games 2012 Music Festival.

Premiering April 9, 2024, Võ's commission for KRONOS Five Decades will be a 10- to 15-minute work inspired by the Vietnamese tradition of using every part of the coconut tree and fruit— including for musical instruments. Võ will work with an instrument builder in Vietnam to develop a communal instrument for Kronos to perform, and for her to join on as a guest when possible. Through this instrument, the work will draw on inherited knowledge and traditions as a way to point us toward a more sustainable future.

Composer Bio >> vananhvo.com

KRONOS Five Decades Project: Commissions

Aleksandra Vrebalov

A native of the former Yugoslavia, Aleksandra Vrebalov left Serbia in 1995 and now lives in New York City. She has written more than 80 works ranging from concert music and opera to music for modern dance and film. Her works have been commissioned and/or performed by the Kronos Quartet, Serbian National Theater, Carnegie Hall, and Moravian Philharmonic, among others. Her awards and honors include the Harvard Fromm Commission, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Fellowship, and the Golden Emblem from the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for lifelong dedication and contribution to her native country’s culture.

Premiering November 11, 2023, Vrebalov's commission for KRONOS Five Decades will be a 15to 20-minute work that expands on sounds, colors, and ideas that she and Kronos have explored together over the years—memory, the polarity between freedom and discipline, the strength of extending both down and upwards into roots and branches. In Gold Came From Space (working title), each player will have their own solo or cadenza moment in a nod to the quartet's 50th anniversary and the musicians who have made it the singular, visionary group it has become.

Composer Bio >> aleksandravrebalov.com

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Janet Cowperthwaite

Executive Director, Kronos Performing Arts Association | Manager, Kronos Quartet P.O. Box 225340, San Francisco, CA 94122-5340, USA

janet@kronosarts.com

revised: 6/14/23