The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classical music. More than 1,000 works have been written for it.
"Purple Haze" is a song written by Jimi Hendrix and released as the second single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on March 17, 1967. The song features his inventive guitar playing, which uses the signature Hendrix chord and a mix of blues and Eastern modalities, shaped by novel sound processing techniques. Because of ambiguities in the lyrics, listeners often interpret the song as referring to a psychedelic experience, although Hendrix described it as a love song.
Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group, distributed by Warner Records, and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, Nonesuch has developed into a label that records critically acclaimed music from a wide range of genres. Robert Hurwitz was president of the company from 1984 to 2017.
Robert C. Ludwig is an American mastering engineer. He has mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists including Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Bryan Ferry, Paul McCartney, Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen and Daft Punk resulting in over 3,000 credits. He is the recipient of numerous Grammy and TEC Awards.
Mark Grey is an American classical music composer, sound designer and sound engineer.
The discography of the Kronos Quartet includes 43 studio albums, two compilations, five soundtracks, and 29 contributions to other artists' records. The Kronos Quartet plays classical, pop, rock, jazz, folk, world and contemporary classical music and was founded in 1973 by violinist David Harrington. Since 1978, they are based in San Francisco, California. Since 1985, the quartet's music has been released on Nonesuch Records.
Kronos Quartet Performs Alfred Schnittke: The Complete String Quartets is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet. The double CD contains all four of Russian composer Alfred Schnittke's "startling" string quartets. String Quartet No.3 was recorded and released in 1988; the other three were recorded between 1994 and 1996 and released in 1998.
Kronos Quartet Plays Sigur Rós is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet, containing two "audience favorites," "Flugufrelsarinn" and "The Star-Spangled Banner". The album is available only as a digital download.
Terry Riley: Cadenza on the Night Plain is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet, the first album-length recording of a collaboration between the quartet and American composer Terry Riley.
Kevin Volans: Hunting:Gathering is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet, containing works by South African composer Kevin Volans composed especially for the quartet.
Five Tango Sensations is a suite of works (Asleep—Loving—Anxiety—Despertar—Fear) for bandoneón and string quartet written in 1989 by Argentine composer Ástor Piazzolla. It was premiered in New York that year and recorded immediately afterwards by the Kronos Quartet and the composer, who played the bandoneón. The record was one of a set of three internationally tinged albums released simultaneously, the Argentine music of this album being accompanied by the music of South-African composer Kevin Volans on Kevin Volans: Hunting:Gathering and the music of Polish composer Witold Lutosławski on Witold Lutosławski: String Quartet.
Terry Riley: The Cusp of Magic is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet and Wu Man, an album-length recording of a collaboration between the quartet and American composer Terry Riley.
Early Music is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet, containing 21 compositions, many of which were written, arranged, or transcribed for the quartet. The subtitle is from Dowland's Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares of 1604.
Dracula is a soundtrack performed by the Kronos Quartet, with music composed by Philip Glass, for the 1931 film Dracula.
Les 4 Guitaristes de l'Apocalypso-Bar, also known as Les Quatre Guitaristes de l'Apocalypso-Bar was an electric guitar quartet founded by André Duchesne in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1986. It was one of the first electric guitar quartets and was billed as a band from post-apocalypse Canada "inspired by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix".
WTC 9/11 is a composition by Steve Reich for string quartet written in 2009–2010 which premiered on March 19, 2011 at Duke University. The piece was written for the Kronos Quartet, who performed the premiere, and was co-commissioned by Barbican Centre, Carnegie Hall, Duke University, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Chamber Music America and the National Endowment for the Arts. The piece is approximately fifteen minutes long, and draws inspiration from the events of September 11, 2001. In 2019, writers of The Guardian ranked it the 17th greatest work of art music since 2000.
Ulf Grahn is a Swedish-born composer living in the United States.
Thomas Ludwig is an American composer of classical music and a symphony conductor. His works have been performed and recorded with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and the New York City Symphony, and have won prizes at the Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards in Washington, D.C. and the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival.
Paul Wiancko is an American composer and cellist of the Kronos Quartet.
Benjamin Verdery is an American classical guitarist, composer and teacher. Verdery has performed at venues including Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, and Wigmore Hall (London). He has played and recorded with a wide range of classical and other musicians, including guitarists William Coulter, Leo Kottke, Paco Peña, Andy Summers and John Williams, vocalist Hermann Prey, composer Anthony Newman, and his wife, flutist Rie Schmidt. New York Times classical music critic Allan Kozinn described Verdery as "one of the guitar’s grand individualists" and "an iconoclastic player," known as much for his devotion to new music and transcriptions of Jimi Hendrix songs as for inventive interpretations of Bach. As of 2021, Verdery had released 19 albums and been featured on several others. He has taught at the Yale School of Music since 1985.
