Kronos Quartet begins its residency at the Luminato Festival in Toronto today. The residency features four concerts reflecting the Quartet's global musical journey. Kronos is "one of the world's finest—and definitely most adventurous—chamber ensembles," says the Toronto Star. "Every one of their nearly four-dozen albums—which have earned every industry award imaginable—have introduced their growing legion of fans and audiences to a new piece of a global musical puzzle."
Kronos Quartet follows its receipt of the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize Wednesday night at Lincoln Center in New York with a residency at the Luminato Festival in Toronto, which begins today. Kronos's residency features four concerts reflecting the Quartet's global musical journey.
In a feature article previewing the Luminato residency, the Toronto Star takes a look at this musical journey. Kronos is "one of the world's finest—and definitely most adventurous—chamber ensembles," says Star music critic John Terauds. "Every one of their nearly four-dozen albums—which have earned every industry award imaginable—have introduced their growing legion of fans and audiences to a new piece of a global musical puzzle." Read the feature at thestar.com.
For the first concert, Kronos welcomes leading Azerbaijani mugham exponents the Alim Qasimov Ensemble as its special guest at Koerner Hall tonight. The ensemble, which can be heard on the most recent Kronos album, Floodplain, is making its Canadian debut with tonight's concert.
Also tonight are free screenings of 2081, a short film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, with an original score performed by Kronos Quartet, and Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky's haunting feature film with a score by Clint Mansell played by Kronos. Both films will be shown in Cinema 5 at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Kronos returns to Koerner Hall Saturday night with another special guest making its Canadian debut, the Homayun Sakhi Trio, featuring Sakhi on the Afghan rubâb. The program includes Canadian premieres of works by Sakhi and by Omar Souleyman, as well as Aleksandra Vrebalov's ...hold me, neighbor, in this storm..., which is also featured on Floodplain.
Torontonians are in for a special treat Sunday night, as Kronos performs a free outdoor concert on the Festival Main Stage in the city's Metro Hall Square, hosted by Laurie Brown of CBC Radio 2's The Signal. Toronto's Annex Quartet opens the show with works by Terry Riley, David Balakrishnan, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, and Osvaldo Golijov, before Kronos takes the stage to perform works by Mansell, Bryce Dessner, Missy Mzzoli, and Sigur Rós, plus Canadian premieres of works by Mansell, Café Tacuba, Midhat Assem, Amon Tobin, and Michael Gordon.
Kronos closes out its Luminato residency next Wednesday, June 15, at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Performing Arts with the Canadian premiere of A Chinese Home, a multimedia piece conceived by the Quartet's Artistic Director David Harrington; pipa virtuoso Wu Man, who makes her Canadian debut in the performance; and director Chen Shi-Zheng. Also on the program are an excerpt from Tan Dun's Ghost Opera, the Canadian premieres of Rahul Dev Burman's Mehbooba Mehbooba and selections from Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic, and the world premiere of an arrangement of Philip Glass's Orion: China.
For more information on these events, visit luminato.com or nonesuch.com/on-tour.
Read Nonesuch President Robert Hurwitz's remarks at the Avery Fisher Prize ceremony in yesterday's Nonesuch Journal.
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