“Whoever invented music was a total genius.”
Don’t spend too much time analyzing that statement. Just know that it was David Harrington speaking. He’s the founder and sole remaining original member of the Kronos Quartet, the string quartet that has devoted more than a half-century to championing new music.
Kronos has been relentless in pursuit of its mission, commissioning more than 1,000 new works, and recording so many of them that the group has become a staple of classical music radio. Lest it exclude any portion of the music-listening audience, Kronos has collaborated with hundreds of performers, everyone from David Bowie and the San Francisco Girls Chorus to Nine Inch Nails and Bollywood soundtrack queen Asha Bhosle.
That’s on top of maintaining an exhausting touring schedule.
“We just got home from Japan on Monday,” said Harrington (on July 2), “and we’re heading out to Brazil next Wednesday.” On the way back from São Paulo, they were scheduled to stop off in Chicago, to perform at the Nobel Laureate Assembly for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
“This is the 80th anniversary of the first nuclear bomb detonation – the Trinity Test,” said Harrington. “It’s a gathering of Nobel laureates, atomic scientists and concerned citizens of the world who are meeting to try to counteract the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”
The group’s performance? “A Concert for the End of the Nuclear Age,” which will coincide with the streaming release of their version of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” in which they’re collaborating with Laurie Anderson, Iggy Pop, Willie Nelson, Allison Russell and 25 other musical artists.
“I’m having the best time I’ve ever had in my whole life,” said Harrington.
A now-rare return to Cincinnati
In early August, Kronos will make its way to Cincinnati, where it will appear as part of this year’s Summermusik programming on Aug. 9 (“Trailblazers”) and Aug. 10 (“Visions for the Future”).
During the 1980s and 1990s, the quartet popped into Cincinnati with some regularity. There always seemed to be an audience eager to share the group’s passion for the future of music. But during the past couple of decades, their visits have become much less frequent. According to Harrington, though, it wasn’t that audience enthusiasm diminished; it’s that the group’s touring schedule expanded so greatly that they weren’t able to get back here as often.
Whatever the reason, they have been to Cincinnati only twice in the past decade; first, on the opening night of the 2016 Music NOW Festival, a collaboration between composer (and Cincinnati native) Bryce Dessner and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, then as part of Chamber Music Cincinnati’s 2023-24 season at Memorial Hall.
The Kronos Quartet we’ll see in August is substantially different from the one we saw the last time they were here.
Two new members have joined the group: violinist Gabriela Díaz and violist Ayane Kozasa, both of whom started with Kronos in July 2024.
Former CCM prof joins the quartet
Kozasa’s name is likely to be familiar to local chamber music audiences. In 2022, she joined the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music faculty as an assistant professor of viola. She left that position when she joined Kronos. But she and her partner (and Kronos cellist) Paul Wiancko still live on Cincinnati’s West Side. Does she see them continuing to commute between Cincinnati and San Francisco? Or… ?
“It’s all TBD,” said Kozasa, speaking by phone from the Kronos tour in São Paulo. “I really love the music scene in Cincinnati. And I’ve made some good friends there. But the Kronos world is so involved on so many fronts.”
Yes, there is some hesitation in her words. But there was no hesitation at all when Harrington called her in 2023 and asked if she would be interested in becoming a member of Kronos.
“The Kronos Quartet was the quartet that I had always dreamt about,” said Kozasa. “The possibility of actually joining them was beyond anything I had ever imagined.”
Her reaction is understandable. She had always been drawn to music by living composers. But Kronos was founded 14 years before she was born. And the idea that Hank Dutt, the group’s violist since 1978, might ever leave seemed unthinkable. It would be akin to Harrington himself retiring. (For the record, Harrington insists retirement isn’t in his future.)
But the unthinkable happened. And Dutt recommended Kozasa as his replacement.
“I feel so privileged and lucky to be part of a group that has worked against all odds to survive for so long,” said Kozasa. “And they’ve never wavered from that path. I’ve definitely been on the other side, where people don’t want to hear the things you believe in. But the idea of never compromising your vision is what Kronos is known for. I feel very lucky I get to inherit that.”
Even dream jobs come with challenges. And even though Kozasa has spent much of her adult life playing in quartets, the Kronos experience has proved quite different.
“The scope of what Kronos does is so much more epic than what I’ve experienced in other groups,” she said. “It’s really amazing. And really great. The experience is so new that it’s as if a part of my brain got lit up all of a sudden. It’s so stimulating to be able to create something instead of just going where you’ve been before.”
Looking toward the future
Given Kronos’ track record, it seems a little silly to wonder if there is a future for the group. But the arts world has changed so radically since the group’s founding. Will there still be room – and an audience demand – for an ensemble that specializes in music that is so unpredictable?
To Evan Gidley, Summermusik’s executive director, the answer is clear.
“We have a core audience that will come to just about anything,” he said. “And when you’re dealing with a group as well-known and with the longevity of the Kronos Quartet, I think that core audience grows exponentially.”
In fact, Gidley believes the appetite for new music is even greater than it used to be.
“To me, a lot of what is being written today is much more approachable than what was being written 20 years ago,” said Gidley. “It seems that composers are acknowledging that if they want their music played more than one time, it has to have an instrumentation and a certain accessibility that makes audiences want to hear it more often.”
To Harrington, that is the key – the audience.
“To me, the musical community begins with the listeners,” said Harrington. “They are the most important element of the community. Then there are the creators – the composers – and the performers. This triangle of forces is necessary for music to thrive and for it to create a future. But it’s the audience that really pulls the sounds out of us. We can practice and rehearse and prepare, but when it’s actually being done live, it’s the quality of listening that pulls the music from the performers. The audience – they really are the most important.”
Kronos at Summermusik
“Trailblazers”
Kronos Quartet and Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Ekhart Preu, conductor
Saturday, Aug, 9, 7:30 p.m. School for Creative & Performing Arts
“Visions for the Future”
Kronos Quartet and Summermusik musicians
Sunday, Aug. 10, 3 p.m., Corbett Auditorium, CCM
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