Kronos Quartet celebrates its 25th anniversary at CU

The Kronos Quartet is, from left, John Sherba, David Harrington, Joan Jeanrenaud and Hank Dutt

The path-breaking Kronos Quartet, who say they "want to give our public the feeling they've heard a world of music in one evening," plan to deliver on that promise when they perform in Bailey Hall Monday, Oct. 19, at 8 p.m. Their program includes music by composers born in the United States, Mexico, Vietnam, Portugal, Argentina and New Zealand.

Tickets for the concert, at $35, $31, $26.50 and $22 for the general public and $21, $18.50, $16 and $13 for students, are now on sale at the Lincoln Hall Box Office, 105 Lincoln Hall, 255-5144. The ticket office is open for telephone sales, Monday through Friday, 9:45 a.m.-1:45 p.m., and for walk-up sales 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Tickets also may be ordered via the Cornell Concert Series web site at http://www.arts.cornell.edu/ccs.

The Kronos Quartet marks its 25th anniversary this year, a milestone for any musical ensemble. For Kronos, the anniversary also celebrates the creation of a repertoire; since 1973 the group has commissioned and premiered 400 new string quartets from composers spanning six continents and at least four generations. A double dedication -- to quartet playing and to the vitality of the form -- is shared among violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt and cellist Joan Jeanrenaud. Add to this their sense of collaboration with composers, their view that each work is literally handmade and their craftsmanship and you have the ingredients that have created a legacy that is as personal as it is prolific.

"I've always wanted the string quartet to be vital, and energetic, and alive, and cool and not be afraid to kick ass and be absolutely beautiful and ugly if it has to be," said the group's founder and first violinist Harrington. "But it has to be expressive of life: to tell the story with grace and humor and depth and to tell the whole story, if possible."

The featured work on Kronos' Oct. 19 program (which will be presented later in the week at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival) is Gabriela Ortiz' 1997 composition Altar de Muertos, which was written for and dedicated to the Kronos Quartet. About Altar de Muertos, the 34 year-old composer has written, "Mexicans assume a number of different attitudes in relation to death and celebrate it in many different ways. In private homes people set up beautiful offerings made of flowers, fruits, candles, food and drinks, all of it displayed on a table resembling an altar. The purpose of this offering, called Altar de Muertos, allows the spirits of the deceased to pay a
visit and help themselves to their favorite food, drinks, and anything that they liked and enjoyed in their previous life. [My] piece Altar de Muertos is also an offering with much symbolic meaning. It is a journey of exploration seeking the roots of the conception of the dead in Mexico from past to present. Its ideas could reflect the internal search between the real and the magic, a duality always present in Mexican culture, from the past to the present."