Nonesuch Records wishes composer Terry Riley a very happy 75th birthday today. Kronos Quartet, longtime collaborators and friends of the composer (pictured at left at Riley's 50th birthday party in 1985), will celebrate with an all-Riley program for the composer and his family, friends, and fans presented by Music in the Mountains at the Amaral Family Festival Center in the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Nevada City, California. The Nonesuch Journal spoke with Kronos Quartet founder, artistic director, and violinist David Harrington about the group's friendship and working relationship with Riley, now more than three decades strong.

It was in 1978 that Kronos Quartet first met Terry Riley, at a rehearsal during the quartet's residency at Mills College in Oakland, California. "For me it was one of those great moments of connection," Harrington recalls. "I had grown up hearing his music, and to have a sense of the personality behind the music at that moment in 1978, it was really perfect."

Harrington, having formed Kronos just five years earlier, felt that Riley would be a great quartet composer. "In my imagination as a young player, I had always wondered, 'What was somebody like Joseph Haydn like? The guy who basically started the string quartet genre, what kind of a personality did he have?' And I remember thinking, it just seemed to me that Terry Riley was a quartet composer: He had a certain generosity and creativity, spark."

Even so, it would take some time, as their friendship developed, over many letters and phone calls, before Riley would compose his first pieces for Kronos. "At that point, Terry had not been notating his music for 14 or 15 years," says Harrington. "In C had been the last notated piece, and that was in 1964. There was a lot of reservation at first about his ability to notate his thoughts and return to that way of laying out musical experiences for other performers."

Nonetheless, before too long, the friendship would develop into a fruitful working relationship. "Eventually," Harrington laughs, "I guess you could say I prevailed. I think it was toward the end of 1979, we had three pieces—Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector, G Song, and Remember This, O Mind—and in 1980 when we played them for the first time."

For tonight's 75th birthday concert, Kronos crafted a program that befits the special nature of this relationship and the man being celebrated. Opening the concert is The Welcoming Baptism of Sweet Daisy Grace, which Riley wrote for his granddaughter, Daisy Grace, who, now about one year old, will be in attendance to hear the piece written in her honor.

Closing the concert is Transylvanian Horn Courtship, a piece inspired by the sounds of the stroh violin and written for new stroh-inspired instruments that Kronos had created by MacArthur "Genius" grant recipient Walter Kitundu. Harrrington amusingly reveals that he had lent one of his own stroh violins to the composer as inspiration for the piece and is hoping Riley will return it to him soon.

At the center of the program is "Conquest of the War Demons" from Salome Dances for Peace, a work Kronos recorded for a 1989 Nonesuch album and which gets to the heart of the composer's spirit. "For as long as I've known Terry," Harrington explains, "his concern for world peace and for humanity to figure out ways to make things works properly has been central to everything he's ever said. To me, 'Conquest' is one of those amazing pieces. He had always hoped thought that Salome would be played at the United Nations someday. I hope it will too."

Listen to the "Discovery of Peace" movement of "Conquest of the War Demons," from Salome Dances for Peace, here:

A quarter century ago, Kronos Quartet joined Riley in celebrating his 50th birthday at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, an event documented in the photo at left. (There are many more archival photos to be found on facebook.com/kronosquartet.) In the time since, much has come from the collaboration among these artists, including two more recent Nonesuch albums Requiem for Adam (2001) and The Cusp of Magic (2008). Harrington hopes that today's event, as much as it celebrates these past accomplishments, also marks much more to come. "I think there are 26 pieces so far; I'm looking forward to 26 more," he says. "May he be around for the 100th."

As Harrington prepares to honor his friend and collaborator through the music they have made together, he offers Riley these similarly inspired birthday wishes. "I join with musicians everywhere that have been affected by his music and inspired by it to wish Terry not only a Happy 75th but a continued creativity," says Harrington. "For me he's one of the world leading musical thinkers. His energy and commitment, what he taps to is, in my opinion, unparalleled. I'm looking forward to many more years together."

For more information on tonight's concert, visit musicinthemountains.org. For more on the recordings referenced above, visit the Kronos Quartet section of the Nonesuch Store.