Kronos Quartet: 40Th Anniversary Celebration with Special Guests Wu Man and Nels Cline Laurie Anderson for Kronos Quartet: Landfall Message from the Center
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Kronos Quartet: 40th Anniversary Celebration with special guests Wu Man and Nels Cline Laurie Anderson for Kronos Quartet: Landfall MESSAGE FROM THE CENTER Welcome to a celebration of an unparalleled four decades of For all of us, having these two artists perform alongside innovation, artistic precision and integrity of purpose from Kronos on the same program is a rare and wonderful a group that has collectively and cohesively perceived the experience not soon likely to be repeated. topography of modern music, its vibrant and myriad landscape of performers, composers, ideas and inspirations and has One experience that we hope will soon be repeated is Saturday pushed its boundaries, expanding the fence line of the familiar, night’s collaboration between Kronos Quartet and Laurie simultaneously creating a new landscape in contemporary Anderson. The fact that these two forces of nature in new music while redefining the art of the ensemble. music have not come together before Landfall is almost unbelievable, but it is also a powerful testament to these The enduring and utterly engaging Kronos Quartet is artists’ inherent and oft-exhibited drive to explore every no stranger to this hall, nor to the public presenting possible creative collaborative path. Now that their artistic arm of UCLA. trajectories have collided we are thrilled to witness the resulting storm of energy, and hope the future holds more of it. Kronos Quartet has appeared more than a dozen times as part of the performing arts program at UCLA and has appeared The stage performances we will enjoy together this weekend on the Royce Hall stage with the likes of Philip Glass, punk- only tell a part of the story of these engaging and generous cabaret progenitors The Tiger Lillies, legendary Indian singer artists. Kronos Quartet hit campus early in the week to share Asha Bhosle, alongside fellow classical-music innovators Bang thoughts and stories with UCLA students and the campus on a Can and more. community during an informal discussion in the Schoenberg Music Library. Thursday morning the ensemble performed Kronos Quartet has been praised over the years for the for 1200 middle-school children in a free Royce Hall concert inclusiveness of its repertoire, the uncanny ability of this titled Around the World with Kronos as part of our educational mission-driven ensemble to be as inclusive of its audience as it program Design for Sharing. Wu Man joined an “arts is with collaborators from across the music spectrum. encounters” class to perform and inform a group of students from campus-wide disciplines on the beauty, mystery and Indeed, what other contemporary music program will you possibility of the pipa. see this year that will include not only the trippy emotional journey that is George Crumb’s Black Angels (the piece The artists you will encounter this weekend are more than that inspired David Harrington to found Kronos Quartet composers, more than performers. They are educators, light- four decades ago) alongside Wagner’s classic Tristan und bringers and way-finders, leading us to a new sensation, a new Isolde, plus a world premiere of a new work from a leading sphere of discovery in the art of performance. alternative-folk-rock guitar hero, not to mention a virtuosic moment from the woman who is making the pipa a household We are very proud to honor them all this weekend. Welcome name in contemporary music, performing the Los Angeles and thank you for being part of the celebration. premiere of a Philip Glass work. It’s all here, with us and we couldn’t be more delighted. This evening marks a special return to Royce Hall from Nels Cline on guitar and Wu Man on pipa. For those of you who joined us in the 2010-2011 season for the lustrous evening with Wu Man, in her first headlining Royce concert, or enjoyed Nels Cline’s major contributions to the Alice Coltrane Tribute, we thank you and glad you’re with us again. Kronos Quartet with special guests Wu Man and Nels Cline: 40th Anniversary Celebration Fri, Mar 14 David Harrington Violin John Sherba Violin Royce Hall Hank Dutt Viola 8pm Sunny Yang Cello Steve O’Shea Lighting Supervisor Scott Fraser Sound Designer PErformancE DUraTIon: Brian Mohr Technical Associate Approximately two hours; One intermission PROGRAM Quartetto per archi Krzysztof Penderecki Spectre * John Oswald DIG DEEPER IN THE Pop-UP LIbrary Orion: China + Philip Glass (arr. Michael Riesman) Kronos Quartet: Beethoven to Bali with special guest Wu Man, pipa Los Angeles premiere Music Librarian David Gilbert will Sim Sholom + Alter Yechiel Karniol share a special resource guide and (arr. Judith Berkson) items from the UCLA Collection. Prelude from Tristan und Isolde + Richard Wagner Aleksandra Vrebalov Royce Hall West Lobby (arr. ) Views from Here to the Heavens (for Scott Fraser) * Nels Cline with special guest Nels Cline, guitar World Premiere INTERMISSION MEDIA SPONSORS: Black Angels George Crumb Thirteen Images From the Dark Land I. Departure 1. Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects 2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes 3. Lost Bells 4. Devil-music 5. Danse Macabre II. Absence Supported in part by 6. Pavana Lachrymae the Colburn Foundation 7. Threnody II: Black Angels! 8. Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura 9. Lost Bells (Echo) III. Return GREEN ROOM SPONSOR: 10. God-music 11. Ancient Voices 12. Ancient Voices (Echo) 13. Threnody III: Night of the Electric Insects For Black Angels: Laurence Neff, Lighting and Stage Designer, Brian Mohr, Sound Designer Calvin Ll. Jones, Technical Director * Written for Kronos + Arranged for Kronos Krzyzstof Penderecki (b. 1933) John Oswald (b. 1953) Quartetto per archi Spectre (1990) Kronos revisits a group milestone—the quartet’s first ever-staged Canadian composer John Oswald is well known for his development production (designed by Larry Neff), Live Video (1986)—in this reprise of “audioquoting” techniques, which have challenged contemporary performance of Penderecki’s early work for string quartet. One in a notions of artistic ownership. series of early ’60s pieces that would garner the young Polish composer an international reputation, the Quartetto per archi overflows with In 1990, Oswald’s notorious recording Plunderphonic had to be musical events and textures. Layers of lightly tapping bows give way to destroyed as a result of legal action taken by Michael Jackson. In 1991, the crackle of plucked strings, barely audible bowed harmonics, sudden a sequel was released, featuring thoroughly reworked soundtracks by low-register growls, and more. This is tantalizing music, the sound musical artists as diverse as the Doors, Carly Simon and Metallica. of intriguing extremes: high and low, gentle and harsh, explosive and Discosphere, a retrospective of dance soundtracks, was released in 1992 hushed. followed by Plexure, the third album of the Plunderphonic series. A retrospective CD box set of Plunderphonic works has been called Penderecki also brought this fearlessly inventive approach to writing “mind-numbingly amazing” by Peter Kenneth in Rolling Stone, and for strings to his large-ensemble works of the period, including 1959’s made Spin Magazine’s Top 10 in 2001. critically acclaimed Anaklasis (featuring 42 strings) and the harrowing Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1959-61), a ten-minute piece for A Governor General Media Arts Laureate, Ars Electronica Digital 52 strings that remains one of the most popular of Penderecki’s works Musics and Untitled Arts Award winner, as well as the fourth inductee throughout the world. It was also with the Threnody that the composer into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Alternative Walk of Fame, debuted a new form of optical notation for his work. Like so many Oswald has also been nominated to third place in a list of the most inventions, this one was born of necessity. internationally influential Canadian musicians, tied with Céline Dion. Oswald is Director of Research at Mystery Laboratory in Canada. More “I had to write in shorthand,” Penderecki says, “something for me to information about his current activities can be found at www.pfony.com. remember, because my style of composing at that time was just to draw a piece first and then look for pitch….I just wanted to write music Oswald composed three string quartets commissioned by Kronos in the that would have an impact, a density, powerful expression, a different early 1990s: Spectre (for 1001 string quartet reflections), preLieu (after expression….I used to see the whole piece in front of me—Threnody is Beethoven), and Mach (for string and heavy metal quartets), followed by very easy to draw. First you have just the high note, then you have this a 4th quartet, entitled Fore. In Spectre, Oswald interweaves Kronos repeating section, then you have this cluster going, coming—different playing in concert with multiple overdubs of his recordings of Kronos. direction from the one note, twelve, and back—using different shapes. In this sense, Spectre is written for a thousand-member string orchestra Then there is a louder section; then there’s another section, then there with all instruments played by Kronos. It was the composer’s first is the section which is strictly written in 12-tone technique. Then it composition for live musicians in 15 years. goes back to the same cluster technique again, and the end of the piece is a big cluster, which you can draw like a square and write behind it About Spectre, Oswald writes: fortissimo….I didn’t want to write in bars, because this music doesn’t work if you put it in bars.” “The camera’s shutter blinks and a moment of the visual world is frozen on film. Still, there is no audible equivalent to the snapshot in the time Born in Debica, near Krakow, in 1933, Krzysztof Penderecki was it takes to sound.