Kronos Quartet TERRY RILEY Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector

In honor of groundbreaking American composer Terry Riley’s 80th birthday, Nonesuch Records releases One Earth, One People, One Love: Kronos Plays Terry Riley—a five-disc box set of four albums of his work composed for, and performed by, his longtime friends and champions Kronos Quartet—as well as a new disc called Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector: Music of Terry Riley, on June 23, 2015, in North America and July 10 for the rest of the world. Riley and Kronos met more than 35 years ago, and since then, the quartet has commissioned 27 works from him, more than from any other composer in the group’s history.

Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector includes a new recording of the title piece, which was Riley’s first for Kronos, as well as previously unreleased recordings of Lacrymosa – Remembering Kevin and One Earth, One People, One Love from Sun Rings; Cry of a Lady (originally released on A Thousand Thoughts); and G Song and Cadenza on the Night Plain (both originally released on 25 Years). Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector also is available for individual purchase. 

Kronos Quartet continues its celebration of its friend with the KRONOS PRESENTS: Terry Riley Festival, June 26–28 at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco. The festival, the first project in the new KRONOS PRESENTS series, features some of Riley’s most significant and rarely-performed works, plus several world premieres composed in his honor, with special guest performers including Zakir Hussain, Wu Man, Riley’s son Gyan, and Riley himself.

Kronos’ violinist, founder, and artistic director David Harrington says of the Quartet’s remarkably fruitful relationship with Terry Riley, which began in the late 1970s at Mills College in Oakland, California: “There is no other composer who has added so many new musical words to our vocabulary, words from so many corners of the musical world. Terry introduced Kronos to Pandit Pran Nath, Zakir Hussain, Bruce Connor, La Monte Young, Anna Halprin, Hamza El Din, Jon Hassell, and Gil Evans.” He continues, “In a crazed world laced with violence and destruction he has consistently been a force for peace. Through his gentle leadership a path forward has emerged. Terry sets the standard for what it means to be a musician in our time.”

Riley says of his 35 years of working with Kronos: “Each of our projects together was launched by conversations with both David and me riffing on ideas. I always came away from these planning sessions feeling exhilarated, and these energies would soon get my pen moving toward a melody or a rhythmic pattern—or, in the case of Salome Dances for Peace, a five-quartet cycle. David has this gift, a unique catalytic effect on so many collaborators. Because of this gift, we have this astounding body of work created for Kronos over the past four decades.”

Kronos Quartet A THOUSAND THOUGHTS

A Thousand Thoughts, whose title comes from the traditional Swedish melody that opens the program, is not a release of new material but a compilation of prior Kronos Quartet performances that draw on international materials. They go back as far as 1989, but the majority come from after 2000, when this aspect of the group's repertoire has become more important. As such, reactions to them may well depend on whether listeners think this kind of experiment represents laudable curiosity or a drive-by approach to world music. Even the detractors, though, would do well to note the following positives. The Kronos Quartet has been highly influential in this regard, as it has in so many others, and it's due to their efforts that it's commonplace nowadays to hear tango music (as heard here) or something similar on a string quartet recital. The group does not simply rely on standards that fit the quartet medium but often feature representatives of the ethnic traditions involved, pushing themselves a bit to enter into exotic sound worlds. (Especially successful in this regard is the concluding version of Danny Boy, sung by the late Texas country singer and yodeler Don Walser, the so-called Pavarotti of the Plains; this version was available on one of Walser's albums but is not exactly a common item.) The sound engineering associated with the Kronos has always been high-class, and this collection of live and studio tracks recorded over almost a 25-year period holds together as a unit quite well. Likewise, the quartet itself has maintained a consistent sound over the several changes in personnel represented here. This has the potential to serve as a good sampler for those interested in the ethnomusicological side of contemporary chamber music. (James Manheim)

Kronos Quartet NUEVO

On Nuevo, a collection of music from Mexico spanning nearly 100 years, Kronos Quartet presents a kaleidoscopic view of a music as diverse as the culture of the country itself. On each track, the group’s sound is transformed, through the collaborative efforts of co-producers Gustavo Santaolalla, the noted Argentinean musician and Rock en Español producer, longtime Kronos producer Judith Sherman, and Kronos Artistic Director David Harrington, as well as through arrangements by composers Osvaldo Golijov, Stephen Prutsman, and Ricardo Gallardo, whose efforts serve to reflect the individual spirit and character of each song.

Harrington notes that walking through Mexico City inspired the record. “I became fascinated with this sense of the layering of things there—of time, of music, of culture, of art … And how you’d walk down the street and never know what you’re going to hear next.”

The sonic landscape of Nuevo suggests the vastness of Mexican culture, a diverse array of experiences and ideas—intellectual, spiritual, and cultural. From the boom-boxes on the street corners to the incessant blaring of television sets, from the traditions of Son huasteco and corrido singing to the influence of Cuba on the culture and music, the sounds of Mexico are the sounds of a place where elements of popular culture and traditional music share a lively coexistence.

The tracks from Nuevo are culled from seemingly disparate sources ranging from "Mini Skirt," by the late Juan Garcia Esquivel, whose early experimentation with stereo caused him to be dubbed the "King of Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music"; to Chavosuite, which features music from three wildly popular Mexican television programs, the original Chespirito and two spin-offs, El Chapulín Colorado and El Chavo del Ocho; to an explosive Prutsman arrangement of Silvestre Revueltas’s "Sensemaya"; to Golijov’s "K´in Sventa Ch´ul Me´tik Kwadulupe" (Festival for the Holy Mother Guadalupe), a composition based on David Lewiston’s 1970’s recording from the Mexican state of Chiapas.

Nuevo also highlights a variety of unusual instruments, like the musical leaf as played by Carlos Garcia on Alberto Domínguez’s "Perfidia" and the organillo performance featured on Belisario García de Jesús and José Elizondo’s "Cuatro Milpas."

The album also features rock en Español supergroup Café Tacuba’s "12/12," a five-part sonic portrait of contemporary Mexico, named for the celebration of the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe observed throughout Mexico on December 12. The piece is an aural tapestry weaving together not only the sounds of electric and acoustic instruments, but also traditional Mexican music and street sounds. It fittingly reflects the spirit of Nuevo, in its merging of widely different sounds and textures to create a unified whole.

Closing the album is a remix of Severiano Briseño’s "Sinaloense" by the DJ Plankton Man, formerly of Tijuana’s Nortec Collective.