Kronos Quartet and YBCA present Kronos Quartet: Black Angels October 28, 2010

YBCA and Kronos Quartet present
Kronos Quartet: Black Angels with other works including Sahba Aminikia's String Quartet No. 3, Bob Ostertag's All the Rage, Ingram Marshall's Fog Tropes II and Aleksandra Vrebalov's spell no. 4, for a changing world

Thu, Oct 28-Fri, Oct 29, 8pm
Thu, Oct 28, 7 pm: Pre–show Talk with Bob Ostertag and Sahba Aminikia FREE with performance ticket

Since they first shocked the classical music world in the early 1970's with string quartet versions of rock classics like Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze, Kronos Quartet has gone on to become one of the most diverse, best-known and most influential contemporary string quartets in the world. This fall, YBCA and Kronos Quartet embark on a multi-year partnership to explore the continuing evolution of this extraordinary musical powerhouse. The new partnership launches with the San Francisco premiere of a new staging of Black Angels, George Crumb's musical response to the Vietnam War, which was the inspiration for the formation of the Kronos Quartet. When violinist David Harrington first heard Black Angels on the radio, he thought it was "something wild, something scary" and "absolutely the right music to play,” and we agree.

Crumb's score draws from an arsenal of sounds, including shouting, chanting, whistling, whispering, gongs, maracas and crystal glasses, to depict a voyage of the soul in three parts — Departure (the fall from grace), Absence (spiritual annihilation) and Return (redemption). The program will also feature the world premiere of a new work co-commissioned by YBCA and the Kronos Performing Arts Association, String Quartet No. 3 "A Threnody for Those Who Remain," by 29-year-old Iranian composer/pianist Sahba Aminikia, a student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. This new work for quartet and electronics is deeply informed by Aminikia's childhood during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980's and includes recordings of the iconic air raid alarm of his youth, as well as TV and radio propaganda from that era. San Francisco composer, performer, journalist and activist Bob Ostertag wrote All the Rage for Kronos in 1993. The piece was developed from a recording Ostertag made of a riot in San Francisco in October 1991, which followed California Governor Pete Wilson's veto of a bill designed to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination.

Where:
Black Angels – 700 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 – YBCA Novellus Theater

Admission: $30 Reg/$25 YBCA Members, students, teachers, seniors, $10 student rush

Public Info:
415-978-2787 or ybca.org

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