FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2024 · 7:30 PM
KRONOS QUARTET & SAM GREEN
A THOUSAND THOUGHTS
THE BAKER-BAUM CONCERT HALL
Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Sam Green (The Weather Underground), in collaboration with Emmy Award®-winning writer and editor Joe Bini (Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Grizzly Man), takes the stage with the legendary classical music group Kronos Quartet to create a “live documentary” that chronologically unfolds the quartet’s groundbreaking, continent-spanning, multi-decade career. Wildly creative and experimental in form, A Thousand Thoughts is a meditation on music itself—the act of listening closely to music, the experience of feeling music deeply, and the power that music has to change the world.
For nearly 50 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet—David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Paul Wiancko (cello)—has challenged and reimagined what a string quartet can be. Founded at a time when the form was largely centered on long-established, Western European traditions, Kronos has been at the forefront of revolutionizing the string quartet into a living art form that responds to the people and issues of our time.
In the process, Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our era, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 70 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, and collaborating with many of the world’s most accomplished composers and performers. Through its nonprofit organization, Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA), Kronos has commissioned more than 1,000 works and arrangements for string quartet—including the recently completed “50 for the Future” library of free, educational repertoire.
Kronos has received more than 40 awards, including three GRAMMY Awards and the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre Prizes—among the most prestigious awards given to musicians.
In recordings, Kronos has collaborated with numerous artists from around the world, including Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man, a collaborator since the early 1990s; Indian tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain; Azeri master vocalist Alim Qasimov; legendary Bollywood “playback singer” Asha Bhosle; punk legend Patti Smith; Romanian band Taraf de Haïdouks; Iranian vocalist Mahsa Vahdat; and Trio Da Kali, an ensemble of griot musicians from Mali. Kronos has performed live with the likes of Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Allen Ginsberg, Rokia Traoré, Tom Waits, Rhiannon Giddens, Howard Zinn, Betty Carter, Van Dyke Parks, Caetano Veloso, k.d. lang, and The National, and has appeared on recordings by artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Dan Zanes, Glenn Kotche, Dave Matthews Band, Joan Armatrading, Angélique Kidjo, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus. In dance, the famed choreographers Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Alonzo King, Eiko & Koma, and many others have created pieces set to Kronos’ music.
The quartet regularly performs in the most prestigious halls and venues around the world, and collaborates with composers on commissioning and premiering adventurous new work. Kronos’ work has featured prominently in a number of films, including A Thousand Thoughts, a unique multimedia piece that blends live music by Kronos and narration by Sam Green with archival footage and filmed interviews to create a “live documentary” that tells the story of Kronos’ expansive career. Written and directed by Green and Joe Bini, the work premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 and has since toured around the world.
Based in San Francisco, the nonprofit KPAA staff manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including commissioning, concert tours and local performances, recordings, education programs, and an annual self-produced Kronos Festival in San Francisco.