Friday, January 25, 2019, 8pm Zellerbach Hall g r e b s e k a l B y a J Fifty for the Future Kronos Quartet David Harrington, violin John Sherba, violin Hank Dutt, viola Sunny Yang, cello Brian H. Scott, lighting designer Scott Fraser, sound designer Cal Performances’ 2018 –19 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. Kronos Quartet Fifty for the Future PROGRAM Kronos Quartet Islam Chipsy (arr. Jacob Garchik) Zaghlala (Blurred vision caused by strong light hitting the eyes) Aleksandra Vrebalov – My Desert, My Rose Oakland School for the Arts Quartet Rhiannon Giddens (arr. Jacob Garchik) At the Purchaser’s Option with variations Kronos Quartet Aab Darvishi – Daughters of Sol Jlin (arr. Jacob Garchik) – Little Black Book Berkeley High School Quartet Wu Man (arr. Danny Clay) – Four Chinese Paintings Traditional/Turpan Dance Arrangement of Uyghur Chebiyat Maqam – ird Dastan for pipa by Wu Man, arranged for string quartet by Danny Clay Kronos Quartet and Soo Yeon Lyuh Soo Yeon Lyuh – Yessori (Sound from the Past) with special guest Soo Yeon Lyuh, haegeum INTERMISSION Kronos Quartet Mario Galeano Toro – Tolo Midi (World Premiere) Nicole Lizée – Another Living Soul Crowden School Quartet Ken Benshoof – sweeter than wine: II. Postscript Kronos Quartet Misato Mochizuki – Boids (World Premiere) Kronos Quartet and Chamber Orchestra Philip Glass – Quartet Satz All works on tonight’s program were commissioned as part of the Kronos Performing Arts Association’s Fiy for the Future: e Kronos Learning Repertoire , which is made possible by a group of adventurous partners, including Cal Performances, Carnegie Hall, and many others. To view or for more information on the videos you see tonight, please visit kronosquartet.org/fiy-for-the-future. PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES Kronos’ Fiy for the Future decade-long career, Kronos’ Fiy for the Future In 2015, the Kronos Performing Arts Associ a - presents string quartet music as a living art tion (KPAA), the San Francisco-based non- form, providing emerging musicians with both profit organization of the Kronos Quartet, an indispensable library of learning and a blue - launched Fiy for the Future: e Kronos print for their own future collaborations with Learning Repertoire , an education and legacy composers. project that is commissioning—and distribut - In addition to freely distributing educational ing for free—the first learning library of materials online, Kronos has traveled the contemporary repertoire for string quartet. world—from Abu Dhabi to Washington, DC, Cele brating more than 40 years of creative col - from Singapore to the East Bay–area schools laboration, Kronos’ Fiy for the Future is com - you see performing tonight—conducting over missioning an eclectic group of composers— 120 residencies and workshops and mentoring 25 women and 25 men—representing the truly over 700 young musicians through Fiy for the globe-spanning genres of string quartet litera - Future . e scores and parts for the pieces re - ture in the early-21st century. Kronos Quartet/ leased thus far have been downloaded over Kronos Performing Arts Association has com - 12,000 times from 85 countries and territories missioned more than 1,000 works since it was around the globe. formed in 1973, but Kronos’ Fiy for the Future A multi-year, $2.5 million project, Kronos’ represents the largest single artistic and educa - Fiy for the Future is made possible through the tional project that it has undertaken. generosity and foresight of an adventurous ere is no shortage of string quartet reper - group of presenters, academic institutions, and toire and educational resources available to other arts organizations who participate in today’s young musicians who wish to specialize the program as Legacy Partners—of which Cal in the canon of works from Haydn through the Performances is one—and Commissioning great composers of the 20th century. Indeed, Partners. rough jointly designed master Kronos founder David Harrington’s own entry classes, workshops, and residencies, Kronos point into the string quartet was Beethoven’s works with each of these core partners to Op. 127. Similarly, there are pedagogical vol - extend the reach of their own educational pro - umes by major composers designed to demon - grams within their communities. Kronos’ Fiy strate a constellation of techniques on a given for the Future also receives generous support instrument, including, for the keyboard, Bach’s from foundations, corporations, and individual Well-Tempered Clavier and Bartók’s Mikro kos - donors, whose commitment to new repertoire mos . But there is no coordinated body of work allows Kronos Quartet/KPAA to shepherd the devoted to the most contemporary approaches creation of an extraordinary source of teaching to the string quartet. information, a primer of the musical world we Kronos’ Fiy for the Future responds to this occupy that will help grow the next generations need, not only providing young quartets with of string quartet players for the next 50 years the ability to immerse themselves in contem - and beyond. porary approaches to string quartet perform - ance, but to develop as players by working their Islam Chipsy (b. 1985) way through the ascending levels of complexity Zaghlala (Blurred vision caused by strong and difficulty within the project. Furthermore, light hitting the eyes) (2017) the project includes a wealth of companion ma - Arranged by Jacob Garchik (b. 1976) terials—audio recordings of Kronos perform - Islam Chipsy and his band EEK are a three-way ing each of the works, video interviews with the force of nature from Cairo, Egypt described by composers, videos and notes illustrating specific those who’ve been caught in the eye of their techniques, background material on sources storm as one of the most exciting live proposi - and inspiration for the works, and more. In the tions on the planet. At the core of the group lies forward-looking spirit of Kronos’ own four- keyboard pioneer Islam Chipsy, whose joyous, PROGRAM NOTES freewheeling sonic blitz warps the standard ori - on a keyboard designed for Middle Eastern ental scale system into otherworldly shapes, scales. e instrument allows him to play huge, as flanked by Mohamed Karam and Mahmoud swooping glissandos with a finger, “glissing an Refat raining down a percussive maelstrom be - octave or more up or down, and I wasn’t sure hind dual drum kits. if Kronos would be able to handle the speed and About Zaghlala , Andy Gilbert writes: If Kro - range. e string players have to do the hard nos Quartet had a motto it might be something work, but it comes off really well.” like: Taking string players to places they’ve While some pieces by Arab composers that never been before. With Jacob Garchik’s surging Garchik has arranged for Kronos require care - arrangement of Zaghlala (Blurred vision caused ful notation to capture microtonal nuances, on by strong light hitting the eyes) by Egyptian key - Zaghlala , he was more concerned with main - boardist Islam Chipsy, Kronos not only trans - taining the piece’s relentless momentum. ports intrepid string quartets to the ecstatic “One of them actually has to play a percus - milieu of a Cairo nightclub, but the chart also sion instrument,” he says. “at’s always a literally turns one ensemble member into a challenge, but Kronos is not afraid. For the drummer, adding percussive drive to the tune’s other players, the parts are very rhythmic and lapidary churn. As part of Fiy for the Future , syncopated. I simplified the drum part so that Kronos’ ongoing project to make new-music it’s playable for someone in a string quartet. e works readily available to aspiring string en - challenge is to play together and get a nice sembles, Garchik’s score is accessible and free groove.” on the Kronos website, “where you can see how the piece can be played in such a way that each Aleksandra Vrebalov (b. 1970) one of us can be the drummer,” says David My Desert, My Rose (2015) Harrington. “Wouldn’t it be cool if every string Aleksandra Vrebalov, a native of the former quartet player in the world could be this Arabic Yugoslavia, le Serbia in 1995 and now lives in drummer? So far Hank Dutt is ours, but that’s not New York City. She has written more than 60 to say that the rest of us won’t do it at some point.” works that range from concert music, to opera With his ear already drawn to the region and modern dance, to music for film. by the Arab Spring protests, Harrington “kept Vrebalov’s collaborative work with director Bill coming back to Islam Chipsy,” he says. Part of Morrison, Beyond Zero (1914–1918) , was com - Egypt’s thriving underground music scene, missioned and premiered by Kronos here at Chipsy’s EEK trio has carved out a singular Cal Per formances in April 2014 and had its sonic niche distinct from the electro- chaabi European premiere at the Edinburgh Inter - artists who are almost required at wedding cel - national Festi val that summer. Her string quar - ebrations. Raw and lo-fi, his music is both vir - tet …hold me, neighbor, in this storm… was tuosic and unabashedly hand-craed: “ere’s written for and recorded by Kronos for the a certain way that he plays—where he takes his album Floodplain . Her string quartet Pannonia fist and slams it into the keyboard—that feels so Boundless , also for Kronos, was published by visceral and exciting,” Harrington says. “ere’s Boosey & Hawkes as part of the Kronos also this sense of fun and abandonment. I can Collection , and recorded for the album Kronos imagine thousands of people dancing.” Caravan . In 2016 she collaborated with chore - Kronos premiered Zaghlala at NPR Music’s ographer Patricia Okenwa on a new piece for 10th Anniversary Concert in December 2017.