Kronos Quartet's new album, A Thousand Thoughts, is due out next Tuesday, April 8. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it: the new album is streaming in full all this week as Q2 Music Album of the Week. "The album would be worth checking out just for the spectacular roster of guest stars the quartet has brought into the studio over the years," says Q2. "But just as impressive as these stellar cameos is the chameleonic playing of the quartet themselves, who manage to blend themselves into musics from Afghanistan, Vietnam and Austin, Texas, even while the core of their sound remains as warm and steady as ever."
Kronos Quartet's new album, A Thousand Thoughts, is due out next Tuesday, April 8, on Nonesuch Records (international release to follow on April 21). But you don't need to wait till then to hear it. The new album is streaming in full all this week as the Q2 Music Album of the Week at wqxr.org. Released in Kronos Quartet's 40th anniversary year, A Thousand Thoughts is a look at the group's geographically wide-ranging sources, featuring music from 14 different countries.
"The album would be worth checking out just for the spectacular roster of guest stars the quartet has brought into the studio over the years," writes Daniel Stephen Johnson for Q2, citing contributions from Asha Bhosle, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, and Astor Piazzolla. "A collaboration with one of these names could be the crowning achievement of a musician's career; Kronos has racked up enough such crowns to fill a trophy room.
"But just as impressive as these stellar cameos is the chameleonic playing of the quartet themselves, who manage to blend themselves into musics from Afghanistan, Vietnam and Austin, Texas, even while the core of their sound remains as warm and steady as ever."
Read more and hear the complete album at wqxr.org.
To pre-order A Thousand Thoughts with an instant download of the album track Sim Shalom, as well as Kronos Explorer Series, a box set of five classic albums from five different parts of the world also due April 8, head to the Nonesuch Store now.
A highlight of Kronos Quartet's 40th anniversary concert season was a performance in Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium in New York City this past Friday night, featuring collaborations with many close colleagues and longtime artistic partners: the world premiere of Terry Riley’s The Serquent Risadome, as well as works by Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Bryce Dessner, Clint Mansell, and more.
"Forty years. 800 works," writes the New York Times' Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in her review. "There was plenty to celebrate on Friday evening when the Kronos Quartet took to the big stage of Carnegie Hall with a colorful, high-energy celebration of four decades spent at the new-music frontier of the string quartet world."
"The heralded Kronos Quartet marked its 40th anniversary and the release of a new five-disc collection Friday night at Carnegie Hall with a little bit of pomp, a little bit of pop and a plenty of musicianship," writes the New York Classical Review's Kurt Gottschalk. "The new 'Explorer Series' series box set, to be issued April 8 on Nonesuch, highlights an aspect of their populist tendencies, with folk and classical works from around the world. Such projects show why they’ve lasted so long and why they were playing to a packed house at Carnegie Hall four decades after their founding."
For details and tickets to Kronos Quartet's upcoming performances, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
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