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Kronos Quartet
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Floodplain
With Floodplain, Kronos Quartet draws together work from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe – in particular from
those nations whose external conflicts and internal divisions have, for many westerners, often overshadowed their rich musical legacies.
With these twelve specially commissioned tracks, Kronos Quartet explore centuries-old traditions while also presenting adventurous new
music by young composers who sample and reinterpret aspects of their indigenous cultures. Some of these pieces have been adapted
from the religious, folk, classical and popular music of Egypt, Lebanon, Azerbaijan and Iraq, among other places. Others were written
for Kronos Quartet by such contemporary artists as the Palestinian electronic / hip hop collective Ramallah Underground, who Kronos
founder David Harrington discovered via myspace, and the Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov.
Over the course of the record, the work shifts in mood from the trance inducing and ecstatic to the austere and contemplative; it exhorts
as often as it soothes. Vrebalov’s contribution, the mesmerizing ...hold me, neighbor, in this storm... embodies the musical, emotional and
spiritual ideas that bonds all of the material Kronos showcases here. Vrebalov’s piece , she says, “is a way to connect histories and places
by unifying one of the most civilized sounds of Western classical music – that of the string quartet – with ethnic Balkan instruments...It is a
way to piece together our identities fractured by centuries of intolerance...”
The arrangers and guest musicians working with Kronos gives Floodplain a cross-cultural frisson: Modern composer Osvaldo Golijov, raised
in Argentina by Eastern European Jewish parents, arranges “Ya Habibi Ta’ala (My Love Come Quickly),” a song popularized in the forties by
the glamorous young Egyptian star Asmahan. American trombonist and composer Jacob Garchik arranges Ramallah Underground’s
“Tashweesh.” Tanzanian visual-conceptual artist Walter Kitundu creates special instruments combining record players and strings for a
piece inspired by Ethiopian musician Alemu Aga, a master of the lyre-like instrument called the begena. For their rendition of “Getme, Getme
(Don’t Leave, Don’t Leave),” an Azerbaijani folkloric love song Kronos brought to their San Francisco home-base an improvisational ensemble
led by the legendary Alim Qasimov, world-renowned performer of the Azerbaijani music known as mugham. After Kronos performed
pieces from Floodplain at London’s Barbican Centre last fall, the Evening Standard noted, “Kronos’s ears have always been open to
extraordinary sounds of the world.”
Kronos Quartet were recently named the sole Carnegie Hall Perspectives Series Artist for the 2009 -10 season, with five concerts at
Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. Performances will include material from Floodplain. Kronos will also participate, later this year, in the Los Angeles
Philharmonic’s West Coast Left Coast Festival, curated by John Adams.
Album Info
Ya Habibi Ta’ala (My Love, Come Quickly)
Midhat Assem (arr. Osvaldo Golijov & Kronos)
Tashweesh (Interference)
Ramallah Underground (arr. Kronos & Jacob Garchik)
Wa Habibi (Beloved)
Traditional (arr. Stephen Prutsman)
Getme, Getme (Don’t Leave, Don’t Leave)
Said Rustamov (arr. Alim Qasimov, string arr. Jacob Garchik)
featuring Alim & Fargana Qasimov
Raga Mishra Bhairavi: Alap
Ram Narayan (arr. Kronos Quartet, transc. Ljova)
Oh Mother, the Handsome Man Tortures Me
Produced by: David Harrington
Co-produced by: Scott Fraser
File Under: Classical
Format: NPR, Classical
Alphabetize Under: K
Internet: Media player blasts to specialty lists and targeted postings
Advertising: Classical + New Music websites, NPR, alternative weeklies
Unknown (arr. Ljova & Kronos Quartet)
Hometown: San Francisco, CA
Mugam Beyati Shiraz
Packaging: Jewelcase with 4-color o-card and 24-page 4-color booklet
Rahman Asadollahi (arr. Kronos Quartet, transc. Ljova)
Lullaby
Traditional (arr. Jacob Garchik)
Nihavent Sirto
Box lot: 30
Selection #: 518349
Tanburi Cemil Bey (arr. Stephen Prutsman)
Kara Kemir
Kuat Shildebaev (arr. Kronos)
Tèw semagn hagèré (Listen to Me, My Fellow Countrymen)
Alèmu Aga (arr. Jacob Garchik)
…hold me, neighbor, in this storm…
Aleksandra Vrebalov
On Tour
4/14 CSUS Music Recital Hall, Sacramento, CA
4/26 Clark County Amphitheatre, Las Vegas, NV
4/22 Fullerton Hall, The art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
4/24 Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
4/26 The NorVa, Virginia Arts Festival, Norfolk, VA
11/3 Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
12/1, 3, 4 Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA
Also Available
Terry Riley: The Cusp of Magic / 360508
Górecki: String Quartet No. 3 ...songs are sung / 104380
The Fountain / 79901
You’ve Stolen My Heart (with Asha Bhosle) / 79858
Requiem For a Dream / 79611
1 CD $16.97
CD Quantity
Street Date:
May 19, 2009