Kronos Quartet performs a free outdoor concert at New York's Damrosch Park for the Lincoln Center Out of Doors series, featuring the world premiere of Christine Southworth's Super Collider, performed with Gamelan Galak Tika on the new Gamelan Elektrika, plus works by Steve Reich, Café Tacuba, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Raz Mesinai. Prior to the concert, Gamelan Galak Tika will lead a free workshop on the kecak, Bali's famed "Monkey Chant."
Kronos Quartet is in New York City today to perform a free outdoor concert at Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park, kicking off the final weekend of the Lincoln Center Out of Doors summer series. The concert, which begins at 7:30 PM, will feature the world premiere of a new piece written for Kronos by Christine Southworth titled Super Collider. The Quartet will be joined for the piece by special guests Gamelan Galak Tika, led by Artistic Director Evan Ziporyn, on a new set of instruments, the Gamelan Elektrika. The groups are pictured at left rehearsing the piece; for more photos from the rehearsal, head to Southworth's Facebook page. You can hear an audio sample of the piece at supercollider.ch.
Tonight's program includes four additional pieces written for Kronos: Steve Reich's Triple Quartet; Café Tacuba's 12/12 in an arrangment by Osvaldo Golijov, which can be heard on Kronos's 2002 Nonesuch release, Nuevo; Serbian-born composer Aleksandra Vrebalov's Sketch from a Balkan Notebook; and Raz Mesinai's Crossfader.
Also performing tonight is Kenge Kenge, making its New York debut, showcasing Kenya’s Luo musical roots using an indigenous one-string fiddle called the orutu, flutes, and drums to explore the traditional acoustic origins of the exhilarating dance rhythms of benga.
Just prior to the concert, in Broadway Plaza, Gamelan Galak Tika will lead a free workshop on the kecak, Bali's famed "Monkey Chant," a trance-inducing song of high energy and precise interlocking vocal patterns, led by Southworth and Ziporyn, followed by a processional performance of belaganjur, the festive, polyrhythmic “marching gamelan.” You can hear the kecak in David Lewiston's groundbreaking Nonesuch Explorer Series recordings from Bali of Gamelan & Kecak.
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Kronos Quartet next appears at the Edinburgh International Festival on August 21, performing two pieces that have long been fixtures of their rich repertoire—Reich's Different Trains and George Crumb's Black Angels—along with a newer addition, Vrebalov's ... hold me, neighbor, in this storm ..., which is featured on the Quartet's latest Nonesuch release, Floodplain. The festival gets under way this weekend with an Opening Night concert from the BBC Scottish Symphony performing John Adams's El Niño.
For the complete Kronos tour schedule, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
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