Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet
David Harrington, violin
Gabriela Díaz, violin
Ayane Kozasa, viola
Paul Wiancko, cello
For 50 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet has reimagined what the string quartet experience can be. Founded at a time when the form was largely centered on long-established, Western European traditions, Kronos has been at the forefront of revolutionizing the string quartet into a living art form that responds to the people and issues of our time. In the process, Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our era, giving thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 70 recordings, and collaborating with many of the world’s most accomplished composers and performers. Through its nonprofit organization, Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA), Kronos has commissioned more than 1,100 works and arrangements for quartet—including the recently completed Kronos Fifty for the Future library of educational repertoire. Kronos has received more than 40 awards, including three Grammy Awards and the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre Prizes. In 2024, the Library of Congress announced its acquisition of the Archive of Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association, an invaluable collection that includes 50 years’ worth of manuscripts, instruments, costumes, video and audio recordings, photographs, and more.
Integral to Kronos’ work is a series of long-running commissioning collaborations with many of the world’s foremost composers. One of the quartet’s most long-standing collaborators is Terry Riley, whose work with Kronos includes Salome Dances for Peace (1985–86) and Sun Rings (2002). Aleksandra Vrebalov has written more than 20 pieces for Kronos, including Pannonia Boundless (1998) and Beyond Zero (2014), a multimedia collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison. Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq has performed and collaborated with Kronos regularly over the last 20 years, including on her works Nunavut (2006) and Sivunittinni (2015). The quartet has also worked extensively with Philip Glass, recording an album of his quartets in 1995 and premiering String Quartets No. 6 (2013) and No. 7 (2014); with Fodé Lassana Diabaté, as heard on Ladilikan (2017); and with Steve Reich, whose string quartets Different Trains (1989), Triple Quartet (2001), and WTC 9/11 (2011) were written for and recorded by Kronos.
In its most ambitious commissioning effort to date, KPAA has recently completed a monumental education project that will be a cornerstone of Kronos’ legacy: Kronos Fifty for the Future. Through this initiative, Kronos has commissioned—and distributed online for free—50 new string quartet works written by composers from around the world. Scores and parts, recordings, and other materials are available on kronosquartet.org. Lead partner Carnegie Hall and an adventurous group of presenters, academic institutions, foundations, and individuals have provided key support for this program.
In recordings, Kronos has collaborated with artists including Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man, Indian tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, legendary Bollywood “playback singer” Asha Bhosle, Iranian vocalist Mahsa Vahdat, and Malian group Trio Da Kali. Kronos has performed live with the likes of Paul McCartney, Allen Ginsberg, Rokia Traoré, David Bowie, Rhiannon Giddens, Caetano Veloso, and The National, and has appeared on recordings by artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Dan Zanes, and Angélique Kidjo. In dance, the famed choreographers Merce Cunningham, Twyla Tharp, Alonzo King, and many others have set work to Kronos’ music.
Keenly attuned to the issues of our time, Kronos has commissioned, premiered, performed, and recorded works that engage with topics such as war and violence (Jonathan Berger and Harriet Scott Chessman’s Mỹ Lai, Mary Kouyoumdjian’s Bombs of Beirut and Silent Cranes) and the climate crisis (Laurie Anderson’s Landfall).
The quartet tours for several months each year, appearing in celebrated venues and festivals, including Carnegie Hall, BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn!, and BAM Next Wave Festival in New York; Big Ears in Knoxville, Tennessee; Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City; the Barbican in London; the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam; Shanghai Concert Hall; Suntory Hall in Tokyo; and the Sydney Opera House.
Kronos’ expansive discography on Nonesuch includes three Grammy-winning albums: Terry Riley’s Sun Rings (2019), Landfall with Laurie Anderson (2018), and Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite (2003); the 40th-anniversary boxed set Kronos Explorer Series (2014); and Pieces of Africa (1992), a Billboard chart-topping showcase of African-born composers that was inducted into the National Recording Registry in 2024. Kronos’ latest release is Songs and Symphoniques: The Music of Moondog (2023), a collaboration between Kronos and the Ghost Train Orchestra revisiting Moondog’s vital and uplifting music for a new generation.
Kronos’ work has featured prominently in many films, including A Thousand Thoughts, a “live documentary” that tells the story of Kronos’ career through live music, narration, and film. Written and directed by Sam Green and Joe Bini, the work premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018. Most recently, the quartet performed on the soundtrack for Users (2021) and is both seen and heard in the documentary Zappa (2020). Kronos has also recorded complete film scores, including by Clint Mansell for Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000), and Philip Glass for Dracula (1999)—a restored edition of the 1931 Bela Lugosi classic.
The quartet is committed to mentoring emerging musicians and has led workshops and masterclasses with Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (New York), the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto), and San Francisco Conservatory of Music, among other institutions worldwide. Kronos has undertaken educational residencies at institutions such as UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances, Holland Festival, and New York University Abu Dhabi.
Based in San Francisco, the nonprofit KPAA staff manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including commissioning, concert tours and local performances, recordings, education programs, and an annual Kronos Festival in San Francisco.
