Kronos: Mazzoli, Jlin, Threadgill, Riley Among Latest Group Of Fifty For The Future Composers

Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA) is proud to announce the fourth group of composers for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. Launched in 2015, Kronos' Fifty for the Future is an exciting partnership with Carnegie Hall and others to create 50 new works - by 25 women and 25 men - expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals. Each year, ten composers are announced. As ever, scores, parts, recordings, videos, and other learning materials for the compositions will be offered free of charge online at kronosquartet.org/fifty-for-the-future.

Kronos premieres each of the Fifty for the Future pieces, which then become part of the group's touring repertoire. The quartet has given more than 275 performances of the 23 pieces that have been premiered thus far. Since the initiative was launched three years ago, Kronos has frequently worked with young players on these works, having mentored hundreds of musicians in workshops, coaching sessions and residency activities around the world.

Says Janet Cowperthwaite, KPAA Managing Director, "We are very pleased to announce the fourth set of composers for Kronos' Fifty for the Future initiative, and we look forward to adding each of their new works to the rapidly expanding online resources. With the first 20 of the 50 pieces now available online, the impact of this project has grown by leaps and bounds in recent months. To date, there have been over 5,600 downloads of the scores and parts in more than 70 countries and territories. We are thrilled to imagine young musicians all over the world learning about and performing these pieces, and we look forward to hearing the new works created by the composers who join us for year four of the project."

On Monday, February 5 (7:30 pm) at Merkin Hall, Kronos is joined by the gifted young players of Face the Music in a program spotlighting Kronos' Fifty for the Future - an excellent opportunity to see Kronos and student musicians sharing the stage and performing together.

Kronos will perform Kronos' Fifty for the Future pieces by Islam Chipsy, Karin Rehnqvist, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Stephan Thelen, plus Clint Mansell's Death Is the Road to Awe. The teenaged Pannonia Quartet will perform Kala Ramnath's Amrit, and the Face the Music Quartet will perform Yotam Haber's From the Book. The program is part of the Ecstatic Music Festival; tickets are $25, available at kaufmanmusiccenter.org.

For more than four decades, Kronos Quartet has collaborated with composers representing the highest level of artistic excellence, along with tremendous stylistic and cultural diversity. In Years One, Two, and Three, Kronos' Fifty for the Future composers included Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Fodé Lassana Diabaté, Tanya Tagaq, Rhiannon Giddens, and Zakir Hussain, among others. Year Four gathers an exciting array of emerging and established artists, representing five countries of origin:

Bryce Dessner (b. 1976) - USA

Bryce Dessner is one of the most sought-after composers of his generation, with a rapidly expanding catalog of works commissioned by leading ensembles. Known to many as a guitarist with The National, he is also active as a curator, a vital force in the realm of new creative music. His orchestral, chamber and vocal compositions have been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Metropolitan Museum of Art (for the New York Philharmonic), BAM Next Wave Festival, Barbican Centre, Sydney Festival, Kronos Quartet-who commissioned the breakthrough score Aheym in 2009-and many others. In 2006, he founded MusicNOW, the Cincinnati-based contemporary music festival that recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary with an album comprised of the festival's best live performances. Dessner earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Yale University. He now resides in Paris and has been increasingly active composing for major European ensembles and soloists.

Mario Galeano Toro (b. 1977) - Colombia

Born in Bogotá, Mario Galeano Toro has spent the past 15 years researching Colombian tropical music and its diaspora throughout the continent. His search has resulted in influential tropicalista projects that range from roots music to experimental music, such as Frente Cumbiero, Los Pirañas, and Ondatrópica. His projects have been released on 10 vinyl records, and he has performed in more than 35 countries worldwide. He studied composition in the World Music department of Rotterdam's Conservatory in the Netherlands, and has achieved grants and distinctions from cultural organizations from Colombia and abroad, as well as a Latin Grammy for musical production. He is a record collector of music from Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. Galeano is a university teacher of music history, and a record cutting apprentice.

Susie Ibarra (b. 1970) - USA

Composer/Percussionist Susie Ibarra is a Yamaha, Paiste and Vic Firth Drum Artist, as well as a 2014 TEDSenior Fellow, who creates live and immersive music that explores rhythm, indigenous practices and interaction with cities and the natural world. Ibarra released an album recorded with DreamTime Ensemble on Decibel Collective in 2017. Titled Perception, it features pieces about finding unfixed meaning in sensory experiences and interaction in one's environment. In 2016, Ibarra was a convener at a winter school in Kyoto, Japan titled "Mapping the Aesthetics of Urban Life in Asia, A dialogue with the arts." She is a Faculty member at Bennington College, where she teaches Performance, Percussion, and at the Center for Advancement of Public Action. Her teaching at the Center focuses on her work in urban and rural revitalization with the arts, art intervention and advocacy for human rights extended equally to women and girls.

Jlin (b. 1987) - USA

Jlin, one of the most prominent electronic producers of the current generation, first appeared on Planet Mu's second Bangs & Works compilation, which had a huge impact on electronic/club music. Though she is known for bringing footwork to a wider audience, Jlin doesn't consider herself a footwork artist. Hailing from Gary, Indiana, a place close yet distant enough from Chicago to allow her to develop a different perspective on the genre, she has morphed its sounds into something entirely new. Released in 2015, her debut album Dark Energy's innovative sound propelled it to the top of many of the year's Best Of lists. Jlin's sophomore album Black Origami was recently released to even greater critical acclaim and attention. In 2017, Jlin also composed the music for a major new dance work by Wayne McGregor, one of the UK's best known choreographers.

Lu Yun (b. 1982) - Taiwan

Lu Yun began studying music at the age of four, and at the age of 18, began studying composition with Professor Hung Chung-Kun. Lu enrolled at the National Taipei University of Arts in 2004, where she obtained a master's degree in music theory and composition. She pursued her Ph.D. at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2009 and received her DMA in May 2014 under the tutelage of composers Zhou Long and Chen Yi. Her work Lord Xinqin for erhu and Chinese orchestra won first prize at Taiwan's Council for Cultural Affairs' (CCA) Chinese Music Composition Competition, where she went on to win the top award in 2004 and 2005. She was also shortlisted for the Best Composer Award at the 16th Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music. Lu is currently an assistant professor at Department of Chinese Music of Tainan National University of the Arts.

Vladimir Martynov (b. 1946) - Russia

Vladimir Martynov studied piano as a child. Gaining an interest in composition, he enrolled in the Moscow Conservatory where he studied piano under Mikhail Mezhlumov and composition under Nikolai Sidelnikov, graduating in 1971. He studied medieval Russian and European music, as well as religious musical history and musicology. In the late 1970s, he began studying early Russian religious chant, as well as Renaissance music of such composers as Machaut, Gabrieli, Isaac, Dufay, and Dunstable, publishing editions of their music. He is now known as a serious ethnomusicologist, specializing in the music of the Caucasian peoples, Tajikistan, and other ethnic groups in Russia. In 2009, the London Philharmonic gave the world premiere of his opera Vita Nuova. Martynov's composition The Beatitudes, as performed by Kronos Quartet, featured in La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), the winner of the 2014 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980) - USA

Recently deemed "one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York" (New York Times), Missy Mazzoli has had her music performed globally by the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, violinist Jennifer Koh, LA Opera, New York City Opera, and many others. From 2012¬-15 she was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia, Gotham Chamber Opera and Music Theatre-Group, and in 2011-12 was composer-in-residence with the Albany Symphony. Upcoming commissions include new works for the National Ballet of Canada, Opera Omaha, and New York's Miller Theatre. Mazzoli is the recipient of a Fulbright Grant, a 2015 Music grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and four ASCAP young composer awards. With composer Ellen Reid, she founded Luna Lab, a mentorship program for young female composers in collaboration with the Kaufman Music Center in New York. Mazzoli teaches composition at the Mannes School of Music (The New School).

Misato Mochizuki (b. 1969) - Japan/France

Born in Tokyo, Misato Mochizuki is equally active in Europe and in Japan. After receiving a Master's degree in composition at the National University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo, she was awarded first prize for composition at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris in 1995, and then integrated the "Composition and Computer Music" program at IRCAM (1996-1997). Her catalogue of works (published by Breitkopf & Härtel) consists of about 40 works today, including 15 symphonic compositions and 12 pieces for ensemble. Between 2011 and 2013, Mochizuki was composer-in-residence at the Festival international de musique de Besançon. Since 2007, she has been a professor of artistic disciplines at the Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo. Mochizuki also writes about music and culture in her own column every three months for the renowned Yomiuri Shimbun, the most widely read daily newspaper in Japan.

Terry Riley (b. 1935) - USA

Terry Riley first came to prominence in 1964 with his groundbreaking composition In C, in which he subverted the world of tightly organized atonal composition then in fashion and pioneered the musical aesthetic known as minimalism. Following In C, he quit formal composition in order to concentrate on improvisation, and devoted himself to studying North Indian vocal techniques under the legendary Pandit Pran Nath. In 1979, Riley began notating music again when both he and the Kronos Quartet were on the faculty at Mills College in Oakland. This nearly four-decade-long relationship has yielded 27 works for string quartet. Kronos' album Cadenza on the Night Plain, a collection of Riley's music, was selected by both Time and Newsweek as one of the 10 Best Classical Albums of the Year in 1988. His epic five-quartet cycle, Salome Dances for Peace, was nominated for a Grammy in 1989.

Henry Threadgill (b. 1944) - USA

Henry Threadgill grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where he played percussion and then clarinet, but switched to sax at 16. In 1967, he enlisted in the Army as a clarinetist-saxophonist, was upgraded to composer-arranger, and then shipped to Vietnam to join the 4th Infantry Division Band. Injured during the 1968 Tet offensive, he was honorably discharged with two campaign ribbons. He returned to Chicago, but left in 1970 for New York City. After decades of probing music, cult status, and critical acclaim, Threadgill has been recognized with a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2008 United States Artist Fellowship, a 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award, a 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for In For A Penny, In For A Pound, the album by Zooid, his unconventional sextet. He is also the first black non-classical musician to get a Copland House Residency Award.

For more than 40 years, 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 many of the world's most intriguing and accomplished composers and performers, and commissioning over 900 works and arrangements for string quartet. Kronos has received over 40 awards, including the Polar Music and Avery Fisher Prizes, two of the most prestigious awards given to musicians.

Integral to Kronos' work is a series of long-running collaborations with many of the world's foremost composers, including Americans Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich; Azerbaijan's Franghiz Ali-Zadeh; Russia's Vladimir Martynov; Poland's Henryk Górecki; and Serbian-American Aleksandra Vrebalov. Additional collaborators have included Wu Man, Laurie Anderson, Tanya Tagaq, Sam Green, Mahsa Vahdat, Trevor Paglen, Van Dyke Parks, múm, Dawn Upshaw, Noam Chomsky, Tom Waits, Asha Bhosle, Taraf de Haïdouks, and Howard Zinn.

On tour for five months per year, Kronos appears in the world's most prestigious concert halls, clubs, and festivals. Kronos is equally prolific and wide-ranging on recordings, including the Grammy- and Latin Grammy-nominated Nuevo (2002) and the 2004 Grammy-winner Alban Berg's Lyric Suite. Kronos' most recent releases include the One Earth, One People, One Love: Kronos Plays Terry Riley box set; Folk Songs, which features Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Rhiannon Giddens, and Natalie Merchant singing traditional songs; the collaborative album Ladilikan with Trio Da Kali, an ensemble of Malian griot musicians assembled by Aga Khan Music Initiative; and the forthcoming collaborative album Landfall with Laurie Anderson, which is scheduled to be released by Nonesuch Records on February 16.

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 a self-produced Kronos Festival. In 2015, Kronos launched Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, an education and legacy project that is commissioning-and distributing for free-the first learning library of contemporary repertoire for string quartet.

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