Oral History Center University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Joan Jeanrenaud Joan Jeanrenaud: Kronos Quartet Cellist, Composer, and Independent Spirit Interviews conducted by Caroline Crawford in 2005 and 2017 Copyright © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley ii Since 1953 the Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library, formerly the Regional Oral History Office, has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Joan Jeanrenaud dated March 11, 2005. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. For information regarding quoting, republishing, or otherwise using this transcript, please consult http://ucblib.link/OHC-rights. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Joan Jeanrenaud, "Joan Jeanrenaud: Kronos Quartet Cellist, Composer, and Independent Spirit" conducted by Caroline Crawford in 2005 and 2017, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2021. Copyright © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley iii Joan Jeanrenaud plays the ice cello, 2001 Photo courtesy of Joan Jeanrenaud Copyright © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley iv Abstract Joan Jeanrenaud was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1956 and raised on a farm there. She studied cello with Peter Sturbeck in high school and went to Indiana University in Bloomington, where she studied with Fritz Magg. After graduation, she went to Geneva and worked with cellist Pierre Fournier before joining the Kronos Quartet in 1978. About that time Kronos made the decision to perform only contemporary music, took on the management of the ensemble and went on the road for several years, traveling with their instruments in a small Toyota. Important early influences were Charlotte Moorman and the Fluxus movement. In 1998 she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and because of the changing nature of Kronos, she decided to leave the ensemble and compose her own music. She has since had a long working relationship with composer Terry Riley, who has composed music for her, and she has been a successful and prolific composer in diverse styles in her own right. She has had commissions from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Asian Art Museum, among others, for new work, and in 2008 she earned a Grammy nomination for Strange Toys. Copyright © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley v Table of Contents Composers Series Preface vii Interview 1: March 11, 2005 Audio File 1 1 Early years and music background; studies at Indiana University and in Geneva, Switzerland, with Pierre Fournier — Remembering Margaret Lyon — Kronos’ repertoire — Terry Riley and Bruce’s Travel Machine and Olde English; In C and G Song — Joining the Kronos Quartet, 1978, Walter and Ella Gray — Kronos staffing and Janet Cowperthwaite — A Mills College residency — The Kronos look — On the road with Kronos Audio File 2 21 Remembering Jacqueline du Pre — Dealing with multiple sclerosis — Democracy and the quartet: four-way decision-making — Packing a Toyota with instruments and four: the good old days, 1977-1992 — A changing quartet — On composing: Yerba Buena Center residency and the MAP Fund, 2000-2001 — Metamorphosis and Ice Cello — Visual elements and found sound — Charlotte Moorman and Fluxus — The Giggliani Quartet and sexism — Playing with friends and collaborations Interview 2: February 17, 2017 Audio File 3 38 More about Fluxus and Charlotte Moorman and Ice Cello — Terry Riley and Knock for Kronos — Teaching at Mills College — David Harrington and the music of protest — Hamza El Din — Writing about Larry Neff for Kronos — Altar Piece — Aria and the making of an installation Interview 3: March 3, 2017 Audio File 4 53 On listening to music — Talking House and Different Fur studios — Changing fortunes for the recording companies — Deconet Records and Deconet cello — More on Charlotte Moorman — Kronos revolution in quartet music — Strange Toys and more about looping — Grammy nomination Copyright © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley vi Interview 4: March 23, 2017 Audio File 5 72 Commissions — Rova Saxophone Quartet — Influence of Memphis and the blues — Commission from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: music for sculptures — Second Time Around; an oral history-music collaboration for theater with Charlie Varon — Writing music for documentary film — Trust for the Asian Art Museum — Visual music — Working with William Winant — Stockhausen, Berio, Ligeti and jazz — On improvisation and composing — Grammy nomination — Evaluating the life of contemporary music works Copyright © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley vii American Composers: Series Preface The American Composers Series of oral histories, a project of the Regional Oral History Office, was initiated in 1998 to document the lives and careers of a number of contemporary composers with California connections, the composers chosen to represent a cross section of musical philosophies, cultural backgrounds and styles. The twentieth century in this country produced an extraordinary diversity of music as composers sought to find a path between contemporary and traditional musical languages: serialism, minimalism, neoclassicism, and back, to some extent, to neoromanticism in the last decades. The battle of styles, and the reverse pendulum swing that followed, were perhaps inevitable, but as the New York Times stated in a recent article, "the polemics on both sides were dismaying." The composers in the series, a diverse group selected with the help of University of California faculty and musicians from the greater community, come from universities (Andrew Imbrie, Joaquin Nin-Culmell and Olly Wilson) orchestras (David Sheinfeld), and fields as different as jazz (Dave Brubeck and John Handy), electronic music (Pauline Oliveros), spatial music (Henry Brant), Indian classical music (Ali Akbar Khan), and the blues (Jimmy McCracklin). David Harrington, founder of Kronos Quartet, was interviewed about the quartet’s commissioning program, which, in recognition of the fact that classical music is no longer an exclusively European-American enterprise, has engaged composers from Argentina to Zimbabwe, producing more than five hundred new pieces in three decades. Also in the series is the following oral history on the subject of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, commissioned by San Francisco Opera for the 2005 season. Various library collections served as research resources for the project, among them those of the UC Berkeley and UCLA Music Libraries, The Bancroft Library, and the Yale School of Music Library. Oral history techniques have only recently been applied in the field of music, the study of music having focused until now largely on structural and historical developments in the field. It is hoped that these oral histories, besides being vivid cultural portraits, will promote understanding of the composer's work, the musical climate in the times we live in, the range of choices the composer has, and the avenues for writing and performance. Funding for the American Composer Series came in the form of a large grant from art patroness Phyllis Wattis, who supported the oral histories of Kurt Herbert Adler and the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and subsequently from the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Copyright © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley 1 Interview 1: March 11, 2005 Audio File 1 01-00:00:02 Crawford: This is March 11th, and I’m sitting with Joan Jeanrenaud in her beautiful backyard in Bernal Heights. I wanted to start by asking you about influences on your work. Was there a grandparent? Was there a parent, an