KRONOS QUARTET & FRIENDS
CELEBRATE PETE SEEGER Recorded Live at Royce Hall October 2020
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
A tribute to the music, philosophy, and impact of American folk singer and activist Pete Seeger.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Kronos Quartet & Friends Celebrate Pete Seeger, with Tehillah Alphonso, Jolie Holland, Lee Knight, Tonoccus McClain, Meklit, and Tonality
Kronos Quartet created this musical celebration as a 100th birthday tribute to Pete Seeger--a beloved artist who spent decades exploring the diversity of the world’s music and sharing it with many generations of audiences.
This program features songs written or popularized by Seeger or his band the Weavers, as well as an original composition featuring archival recordings of Seeger himself, gathered with help from Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center. It also includes Zoe Mulford’s moving 2017 song, The President Sang Amazing Grace. David Harrington of Kronos Quartet says “this incredible song could not exist without the life’s work of Pete Seeger, as it asks important questions and says essential things, like he did.”
Kronos developed this concert program, highlighting Seeger’s musical and cultural legacy, for Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts’ (MASS MoCA) FreshGrass festival in 2019. That initial performance was recorded and released as a live album, Long Time Passing. The performance you are experiencing was recorded live in UCLA’s Royce Hall in the fall of 2020 (with social distancing measures in place), as part of the Tune In Festival—a virtual gathering of artists, raising their voices together as our country navigates a global health crisis, renewed demands for racial justice, and a contentious presidential transition.
“We look to Seeger’s legacy – a legacy that demands that we summon all of the skill, experience and energy we can possibly muster to tackle the injustices of our country,” says Harrington.
Linked by a shared history of lifting our voices in the face of struggle, these songs and artists inspire us all to move forward, together.
Storyteller Step By Step Composer: Jacob Garchik Composer: Traditional, Arranger: Waldemar Hille and Pete Seeger, with further arrangement by Kronos Which Side Are You On Quartet Composer: Florence Reece, Arranger: Jacob Garchik Where Have All The Flowers Gone The President Sang Amazing Grace Composer: Pete Seeger, Arranger: Jacob Garchik Composer: Zoe Mulford, Arranger: Jacob Garchik Mbube The House of the Rising Sun Composer: Solomon Linda, Arranger: Jacob Garchik Composer: Traditional, Arranger: Jacob Garchik Turn, Turn, Turn If I Had A Hammer Composer: Pete Seeger, Arranger: Jacob Garchik Composer: Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Arranger: Jacob Garchik We Shall Overcome Composer: Traditional, Arranger: Adapted by Zilphia Garbage Horton, Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, and Pete Composer: Bill Steele Arranger: Jacob Garchik Seeger; arranged for string quartet by Jacob Garchik
For Pete's Sake: How Pete Seeger's bold legacy inspired Kronos Quartet Read more about how this program came to be in this Guardian article by David Harrington
ABOUT KRONOS QUARTET
Since 1973, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet—David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola) and Sunny Yang (cello)—has combined a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually reimagine the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the world’s most celebrated and influential ensembles, performing thousands of concerts, releasing more than 60 recordings, collaborating with an eclectic mix of composers and performers, and commissioning over 1,000 works and arrangements for string quartet. The group has won over 40 awards, including two Grammys, the prestigious Polar Music and Avery Fisher Prizes. The nonprofit Kronos Performing Arts Association manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including the commissioning of new works, concert tours and home season performances, education programs and the annual Kronos Festival. In 2015, Kronos launched 50 for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, an education and legacy project that is commissioning—and distributing online for free—50 new works for string quartet composed by 25 women and 25 men.
DIG DEEPER: Discussion Topics
• Are any of the songs in this performance familiar to you? Where had you heard them before?
• Were you surprised to hear this kind of music played by a string quartet? What instruments or sounds are usually associated with folk music? What kind of music do you expect to hear on a violin or cello?
• Many folk songs or protest songs stay resonant because they ask important questions, or say important things. What songs do that for you?
• What songs or artists give voice to what is important to you?
• Nearly 80 years ago, in 1942, Pete Seeger wrote the following lines for a song called Dear Mister President:
This is the reason that I want to fight, Not 'cause everything's perfect, or everything's right. No, it's just the opposite: I'm fightin' because I want a better America, and better laws, And better homes, and jobs, and schools
Does that still seem applicable? Are we still fighting for the same causes in 2021?
• What issue, idea or problem would you write a song about? What would it sound like?
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
Learn more about Kronos Quartet and their wide-ranging musical explorations
Experience other highlights of CAP UCLA’s Tune In Festival, featuring artists and poets from around the world.
Find out more about the live album of Kronos’ celebration of Seeger, Long Time Passing.
See a beautifully illustrated video featuring Joan Baez singing The President Sang Amazing Grace, a song honoring the moment President Obama sang with a grieving nation following the 2015 shooting in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
CHECK OUT PAGE 6 OF THIS GUIDE FOR A VISUAL ARTS ACTIVITY!
WHO WAS PETE SEEGER?
Pete Seeger (May 3, 1919 – Jan. 27, 2014) helped introduce America to its own musical heritage. He devoted his life to using the power of song as a force for social change. Throughout his life, Pete worked for civil rights, fair labor rights, racial equality, international understanding, and peace. He believed that sharing songs could help people achieve these goals. Born to a musical family, Pete grew up surrounded by music. His father was a leading professor and musicologist—a person who researches the history, culture and meaning of music. Pete’s mother Constance was a concert violinist. As a teenager, Pete was accepted to Harvard, but dropped out after just one year to work with Alan Lomax at the Archive of Folk Song in the Library of Congress. Lomax was well known for collecting field recordings of folk and traditional music around the US, preserving and popularizing blues, folk, and country music. Pete assisted him on recording trips around the country, experiencing first-hand a wide range of uniquely American music. Inspired by this work, Pete helped found The Almanac Singers, along with Woodie Guthrie. The group specialized in protest and folk songs, mostly around anti-war, anti-racism and workers’ rights causes. Seeger plays in Washington, DC; 1969 They performed songs that they thought of as the best of American music from both black and white cultural traditions, even as much of American life was still segregated—and they invited the audience to join in the singing. Later, Pete was part of the hugely popular group, The Weavers. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, They sold millions of records at the height of their popularity in the 1950s, and brought diverse music to mainstream American culture. Pete was also an educator and author. His 1948 book, How to Play the Five-String Banjo is considered a classic, launching generations of banjo players. He also created, contributed to and advised important musical publications like People’s Songs and Sing Out!, and organizations like The Smithsonian Institute’s Folk Life Center. In 1955, Pete was called to testify to the House Un-American Seeger’s banjo, which reads “This machine Activities Committee, a group of Congressmen who investigated surrounds hate and forces it to surrender” what they thought of as disloyalty and subversive activities by private citizens, public employees, and organizations. Many people in media and entertainment-- including actors, writers, film-makers, directors, radio commentators, and musicians—were questioned by the Committee. Eventually, more than 300 artists were ‘blacklisted’, or boycotted by their own industries, and denied jobs because of the accusations of the Committee. Pete Seeger was among them, and was not allowed to perform on TV or radio for several years. During this time, he worked as a music teacher in schools and summer camps, and played at college campuses. He began writing and recording songs with Folkways, an independent record label that focused on folk music from around the world as well as poetry, spoken word, and field recordings of people and nature. Two of these songs, Where Have all the Flowers Gone? and Turn! Turn! Turn! went on to become some of the best known anti-war songs ever written. Pete was very involved in the Civil Rights Movement and in 1963, he helped organize a landmark Carnegie Hall concert, featuring The Freedom Singers. This event, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic March on Washington—where he delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech—established Pete’s arrangement of We Shall Overcome as an anthem of the movement. Thousands of marchers sang it on the 50-mile walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. In talking about the role of music in the fight for civil rights, King said “[These songs] take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music.”
A vocal opponent of war and violence, Pete protested the Vietnam War. In 1969, he led 500,000 protesters in singing John Lennon's song Give Peace a Chance as they rallied across from the White House.
Pete and his wife, Toshi founded the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, a non-profit organization to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through public education. They constructed a floating ambassador for this environmental mission, the sloop (or sailboat) Clearwater, and began an annual music and environmental festival, which continued until Toshi’s death in 2013. Pete Seeger was involved in almost every important facet of American culture for the last 60 years. He remained active and committed to making positive change in our nation, right up until his death at age 94, in 2014. In his life, he wrote and co-wrote dozens of songs, many of which have become standards, and he popularized hundreds more written by others. Pete lent his voice and his leadership to environmental and social causes all over the world and in his own back yard. And, he encouraged everyone to sing out along with him. Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen perform together at Barack Obama’s Inauguration in 2009
" For reminding us where we come from and showing us where we need to
go, we will always be grateful to Pete Seeger.” --President Barack Obama
MAKE YOUR MARK! Share what matters to you in this handprint poster project.
SUPPLIES: Paper and Crayons, Markers, or Colored Pencils. (whatever you have will work!)
Before you start, brainstorm about what is important to you. Stuck? Start by filling in the blanks: “It matters that______”, or “______Matters”.
Keep these ideas in mind as you move on to creating your artwork.
First, choose a piece of paper. Any size and any color, as long as it is big enough for your hand print, and you can write or draw legibly on it.
Decide how you want your hand outline to be positioned on the page. How many hands? Just one, or as many as can fit? How close together? Will you use the whole hand, or just part of it? Try right and left hands, rotate your paper. Experiment until you find a placement you like.
When you’ve decided on the positions, press your hand down on the paper and carefully trace the outlines of your hand with a pencil.
Then, add your words. Look back at your brainstorm and choose what you want on your poster. This can be one simple headlining slogan, or many words filling the space. Consider how the words will be spaced in or around the hand shapes.
Finally, add color and detail. When you’ve chosen your colors, go back over your pencil lines with a marker or crayon. We’d love to see what you created! Take a picture and share it with us here.