Kronos Quartet
As Harrington has said, Black Angels contained such strange sounds that he didn't even recognize it as quartet music, but felt an overwhelming desire to play it. At 22, he started a group that soon afterward gave the Northwest premiere of Black Angels.
From its inception, Kronos began building a compellingly diverse repertoire for string quartet, performing and recording works by 20th-century masters (Bartok, Shostakovich, Webern), contemporary composers (Aleksandra Vrebalov, John Adams, Alfred Schnittke), jazz legends (Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk), and artists from even farther afield (rock guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, Azeri vocalist Alim Qasimov, avant-garde saxophonist John Zorn).
In the more than 30 years since its founding, the Kronos Quartet has pursued a singular artistic vision, combining a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to expanding the range and context of the string quartet. In the process, Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our time, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 40 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, collaborating with many of the world's most eclectic composers and performers, and commissioning hundreds of works and arrangements for string quartet.
