As part of Nonesuch Records's 60th anniversary celebrations, the 2024 Big Ears Festival lineup includes fifteen Nonesuch artists past, present, and future. Ahead of the festival, taking place in Knoxville, TN, March 21–24, we've got a playlist of music from all of those artists: Sam Amidon, Laurie Anderson, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Tyondai Braxton, Rhiannon Giddens, Mary Halvorson, Robin Holcomb, Wayne Horvitz, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Kronos Quartet, Brad Mehldau, Ringdown (Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee), Davóne Tines, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, and Yasmin Williams. You can hear it here via Spotify and Apple Music.

As part of Kronos: Five Decades, the year-long celebration of Kronos Quartet’s 50th anniversary, the group is publishing five decade-spanning playlists curated by its founder and violinist David Harrington. The latest, featuring music Kronos performed in its third decade, 1993–2002, is out now. It includes works the quartet recorded on Nonesuch by Alberto Domínguez, R.D. Burman, Alfred Schnittke, Lee Hyla and Allen Ginsberg, Henryk Górecki, Clint Mansell, Severiano Briseño, Tan Dun, Osvaldo Golijov, Guillaume de Machaut, Christopher Tye, John Cage, Hildegard von Bingen, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Sapo Perapaskero, Carlos Paredes, Michael Daugherty, Scott Johnson, Esquivel, Café Tacvba, Sofia Gubaidulina, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, and Morton Feldman. You can hear it here.

As part of Kronos: Five Decades, the year-long celebration of Kronos Quartet’s 50th anniversary, the group is publishing five decade-spanning playlists curated by its founder and violinist David Harrington. The latest, featuring music Kronos performed in its second decade, 1983–1992, is out now. It includes works the quartet recorded on Nonesuch by Steve Reich, Ornette Coleman, Philip Glass, John Zorn, Henryk Górecki, Kevin Volans, Thomas Tallis, Astor Piazzolla, Jack Body, Terry Riley, and Arvo Pärt. You can hear it on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube here.

Kronos Quartet’s acclaimed 1995 album Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass is now available on vinyl for the first time, to coincide with Kronos: Five Decades, a year-long celebration of the quartet’s 50th anniversary. The two-LP set, produced by the composer, Judith Sherman, and Kurt Munkacsi, features violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt, and cellist Joan Jeanrenaud performing quartets No. 2 (Company) (1983), No. 3 (Mishima) (1985), No. 4 (Buczak) (1990), and No. 5 (1991), the first piece Glass wrote for Kronos. “It contains some of Glass's best music since Koyaanisqatsi,” said the New York Times. “His ear for sumptuous string sonorities is undeniable.” The Washington Post called it “an ideal combination of composer and performers.”

It was thirty-five years ago today that Kronos Quartet gave the world premiere performance of Steve Reich’s Different Trains at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. To mark the occasion, Reich’s publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, has published a new video, in which he discusses the process behind composing this piece for string quartet and tape. Reich used carefully chosen speech recordings to shape the musical material for the score, evoking his American childhood during World War II while also addressing the Holocaust. The 1989 first recording of Different Trains, performed by Kronos, won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition.

Kronos Quartet’s award-winning 1990 album Black Angels will be released on vinyl on February 16, 2024, to coincide with Kronos Quartet: Five Decades, a year-long celebration of the quartet’s 50th anniversary. First released in 1990, the album features George Crumb’s title piece, which inspired David Harrington to found the quartet in 1973, and works by Charles Ives, István Márta, Thomas Tallis, and Dmitri Shostakovich. The fourth side of the vinyl is an etching of an illustration created especially for this purpose by Matt Mahurin, whose work is featured on the original album cover. The Evening Standard included Black Angels among its “100 Definitive Classical Albums of the 20th Century.”

As part of Kronos: Five Decades, the year-long celebration of Kronos Quartet’s 50th anniversary, the group is publishing five decade-spanning playlists curated by its founder and violinist David Harrington. The first, featuring music Kronos performed in its first decade, 1973–1982, is out now. It includes works the quartet would later record on Nonesuch by George Crumb, Ken Benshoof, Terry Riley, Anton Webern, Peter Sculthorpe, Dmitri Shostakovich, Jimi Hendrix, Aulis Sallinen, Alban Berg, Witold Lutosławski, and Samuel Barber. You can hear it here.

Kronos Quartet’s acclaimed 1995 album Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass gets its first-ever vinyl release on November 3, available to pre-order now, to coincide with Kronos Quartet: Five Decades, a year-long celebration of the quartet’s 50th anniversary. The two-LP set, produced by the composer, Judith Sherman, and Kurt Munkacsi, features violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt, and cellist Joan Jeanrenaud performing quartets No. 2 (Company) (1983), No. 3 (Mishima) (1985), No. 4 (Buczak) (1990), and No. 5 (1991), the first piece Glass wrote for Kronos. “It contains some of Glass's best music since Koyaanisqatsi,” said the New York Times. “His ear for sumptuous string sonorities is undeniable.” The Washington Post called it “an ideal combination of composer and performers.”

The Royal Conservatory of Music’s Koerner Hall in Toronto has announced its 2023–24 concert season—the venue’s fifteenth anniversary season—including performances from Rhiannon Giddens, Brad Mehldau, Laurie Anderson, Kronos Quartet, and Richard Goode.

The Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA (CAP UCLA) has announced its 2023–24 season, including Gabriel Kahane & Attacca Quartet performing from his album Magnificent Bird in the new UCLA Nimoy Theater on October 22 and Kronos Quartet celebrating its fiftieth anniversary season in Royce Hall on April 28, as well as several other artists who can be hear on Nonesuch recordings.

Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley, has announced its 2023–24 concert season, including performances by Brad Mehldau (both solo and with his Trio), Cécile McLorin Salvant, Kronos Quartet, Rhiannon Giddens with Silkroad Ensemble, and Attacca Quartet.

Kronos Quartet has announced its eighth-annual Kronos Festival, to take place at SFJAZZ Center, June 22–24, 2023. This year's festival celebrates works created for Kronos Fifty for the Future, a commissioning, performance, education, and legacy project. Featuring pieces by Rhiannon Giddens, Philip Glass, Zakir Hussain, Angélique Kidjo, Terry Riley, Wu Man, and more, the festival is hosted by Kronos in multiple performances over three days; the group is joined by Aizuri Quartet, Attacca Quartet, and Friction Quartet plus special guests Rafiq Bhatia (guitar), Soo Yeon Lyuh (haegeum), sound artist and instrument-maker Victoria Shen, and student ensembles from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.