Musical boundaries beware when Kronos comes to town

Musical boundaries beware when Kronos comes to town

Unusual string quartet redefines ‘classical’ in Schoenberg
show

By John Mangum

Daily Bruin Staff

The Kronos Quartet is determined to make listeners think about
music in a way that would never occur to most people.

It’s a string quartet, so audiences would expect to hear them
play a healthy amount of Haydn or Beethoven. But they don’t.

While the members of Kronos play instruments traditionally
created for classical music, and most of the music they play is
tenuously linked to the European musical tradition, their approach
is decidedly original. They bring their own unique style to
Schoenberg Hall tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m., playing music that
defies categorization.

"Well, I think that a lot of times some of the boundaries that
you might find if you went into a record store or a library might
be missing in some of our concerts," explains Kronos founder and
violinist David Harrington. "The assumption that if you go to a
string quartet concert it’s going to sound like X, Y or Z European
composer from the 18th or 19th century is something that we have
taken a lot of delight in changing."

For Harrington, this quest to change listeners’ expectations
resulted from his own discovery of new music when he was 16. As
Kronos’ founder, his goals have helped to define those of the
quartet.

"It was a direct result of being in a group that was playing
music by a composer, Ken Benshoof, that had written a piece
especially for my group," Harrington says. "Benshoof was writing a
piece, and a couple of times a week we’d go over to his house and
play through what he’d written up to that point.

"At that age, I began to see how a new piece of music changes
and how, if you’re involved with it long enough, it becomes your
music. Ever since that time that’s what I’ve wanted to do every
day."

And Harrington and Kronos pretty much have. Not only do they
play only 20th century works, they also explore music from outside
the European tradition.

During their appearances here, Kronos plays works from all over
the world which were specifically composed for them. The music
ranges from American composer Philip Glass’ Quartet No. 5 to "Kafu
Julo" by West African musician Foday Musa Suso.

"Foday Musa Suso is a musician and composer from Gambia in West
Africa, and his family has played the African harp, which is called
a kora, for the last 500 years," Harrington says.

"In Gambia, there’s a tradition of oral historians. They’re
called griots, and they’re the keepers of the history of the
people, and so rather than having textbooks, microfilms or
computers they have griots. The griots are singing historians, and
Foday Musa Suso can tell you stories about relatives that go back
500 years in his family."

This international approach to music helps bring Harrington and
the quartet closer to different cultures and their ways of life.
They can tap in to something that only music can communicate, and
they hope to convey this "inner life" of people to their
audiences.

"I think that we’re able to get to know different aspects of
life through music, things that are probably impossible to
communicate in any other way or to really even verbalize, things
about culture and life that belong specifically to music,"
Harrington says.

"When you hear music from a composer from Azerbaijan, the scales
that are used are very different from what you’ve grown up with or
what you normally hear in your everyday life in California. Then
you meet that composer and work with her and ask questions and try
out things.

"Later, we had the good fortune to meet her in Turkey and she
took me to a mosque and it was fantastic. I’ve never been to a
mosque in my life and here I was being introduced to a whole aspect
of life that’s very, very important to millions and millions of
people that I had never even had any involvement with, and all of
this is happening because we were playing a piece of her music. To
me music can become kind of a window into the inner life of
people."

CONCERT: Kronos Quartet at Schoenberg Hall Friday, May 12, and
Saturday, May 13, at 8 p.m. TIX: $28, $13 for students. For more
info call (310) 825-2101.