The Kronos Performing Arts Association has announced that Kronos Quartet will welcome a new cellist, Sunny Jungin Yang, to the ensemble this June. Yang will succeed Jeffrey Zeigler, who has performed with the quartet for the past eight seasons and will step down from the group this May to work on solo projects and new collaborations and to begin teaching at Mannes College The New School For Music. 

Kronos Quartet launches a two-week tour of Australia and New Zealand at the Perth Festival, joined by Laurie Anderson for the Australian premiere of Landfall, a new work by Anderson. They perform the piece at the Adelaide Festival this Saturday. The Kronos tour includes additional performances at the Perth and Adelaide festivals and a show in Melbourne, as well as a four-city New Zealand tour. Laurie Anderson performs her piece Dirtday! at the Adelaide Festival before heading to Paris, where she will be the focus of a Domaine Privé at Cité de la Musique next week.

Kronos Quartet and Laurie Anderson come together for the world premiere of Scenes From My New Novel, a new work composed by Anderson, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park, Maryland, this weekend. “These are stories with tempos,” says Anderson. "Much of the music is generated from software we designed for the viola. It creates harmonies and delays that are then interpreted and expanded by Kronos." Additional performances are scheduled for the coming months in Australia, California, New Jersey, and London.

Carnegie Hall has announced its 2013–14 season, and featured among the performers taking the esteemed hall's stages are a number of artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal, including Chris Thile, Bombino, Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, and Richard Goode, as well as performances of works by John Adams, Steve Reich, Laurie Anderson, and more.

Kronos Quartet will be honored by MATA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to commissioning and presenting works by young composers from around the world, in the organization's 15th Annual Benefit Gala at the Tibet House in New York City Tuesday night. The evening will feature remarks by Philip Glass and Steve Reich and by Jennifer Bilfield of Stanford Live, as well as performances by Pannonia Quartet and Jacob Garchik's The Heavens. Kronos performs in Iowa City this week, then launches a tour of Europe that features several performances of Reich's WTC 9/11.

After a European tour which included four Cultural Olympiad performances in the UK, Kronos Quartet has returned home to San Francisco and announced a new set of tour dates for the 2012–13 season. The group will perform across the US, Europe, and Australia, including the premiere of a new collaboration with Laurie Anderson, the conclusion of Kronos' multi-year partnership with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, a return to the UK for the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival curated by The National, and much more.

Kronos Quartet has announced the details of the fifth edition of the Kronos: Under 30 Project, a commissioning program designed to support the creation of new music by young artists. Applications are available now; the deadline is November 16, 2012. The selected composer will be commissioned to write a new work for the quartet, which will premiere in Spring 2014 as a part of Kronos' 40th anniversary season. The Kronos: Under 30 Project was created in 2003, Kronos’ 30th anniversary year.

Kronos Quartet has announced its late-spring and summer tour schedule, adding a number of dates throughout Europe. The Quartet kicks things off this weekend with two concerts at home in San Francisco, then heads to Europe for the first of two trips, featuring performances of Dracula with Philip Glass. In July, Kronos returns to the UK for several events in the Cultural Olympiad and the group's debut at BBC Proms.

Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley, has announced its 2012–13 season, which will feature Kronos Quartet as the season's Artists in Residence; Philip Glass's groundbreaking work with Robert Wilson, Einstein on the Beach; Fatoumata Diawara's debut; a Sérgio & Odair Assad concert with Paquito D'Rivera; and the return of the Mark Morris Dance Company with the holiday favorite Hard Nut. Subscription sales begin on Friday.

Kronos Quartet's latest album, Music of Vladimir Martynov, has been named the Album of the Week by Q2 Music, the New York-based online new-music station of WQXR. The album opens with The Beatitudes, which "beams with religious ecstasy and provides an easy gateway to the meatier subjects," says Q2. "Enter with fortitude, but expect euphoria." Kronos Quartet will give the New York premiere of one of the pieces at Carnegie Hall on February 28.

Kronos Quartet's new album features the work of contemporary Russian composer Vladimir Martynov. The Los Angeles Times calls his Schubert-Quintet (Unfinished) a "masterpiece. The performance, exquisitely recorded, is radiant." The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette calls it a "hauntingly beautiful work, a masterwork ... This is an album brimming with warmth and emotion, of flesh and spirit, that is romantic and beautifully played." The album comes "highly recommended" from All Music, which says: "Nonesuch's sound is clean, warmly immediate, and vibrant." The Winnipeg Free Press says "the Kronos crew deliver a stunning exploration that sends chills."

Carnegie Hall has announced its 2012–13 season, and featured among the performers taking the esteemed hall's stages are a number of artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal, including Kronos Quartet, Richard Goode, Dawn Upshaw, and Alarm Will Sound, as well as world and New York premiere performances of works by Steve Reich, Timothy Andres, and Donnacha Dennehy. In addition, John Adams will lead a Professional Training Workshop for emerging talents through Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute.