The use of cameras or recording equipment during the

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones, 

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Please note that late entry or reentry ofthe 

East Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive 

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

cover: Paul Stevenson Oles, 1971, National Gallery of Art Archives

The Sixty-fourth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,566th Concert

Kronos Quartet

David Harrington, violin, John Sherba, violin

Hank Dutt, viola, Jeffrey Zeigler, cello

with special guest Wu Man, pipa

Larry Neff, lighting designer

Scott Fraser, sound designer

April 2, 2006

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admission free
Program

John Zorn (b. 1953)

Cat 0’ Nine Tails (1988)*

Sigur Ros

Flugufrelsarinn (The Fly Freer) (1999)

Arranged for Kronos by Stephen Prutsman

Scott Johnson (b. 1952)

“It Raged” from How It Happens (The Voice ofl.F. Stone) (1991)*

Rahul Dev Burman (1939-1994)

Nodir Pare Utthchhe Dhnoa (Smoke Rises across the River)

Washington premiere performance

Arranged by Stephen Prutsman and Kronos in 2004

INTERMISSION

Terry Riley (b. 1935)

The Cusp ofMagic (2004)*

Washington premiere performance

The Cusp of Magic

Buddha’s Bedroom

The Nursery

Royal Wedding

Emily and Alice

Prayer Circle

Composed for Kronos
The Musicians

KRONOS QUARTET

For more than thirty years, the Kronos Quartet (also known as Kronos) has

pursued a singular artistic vision, combining a spirit of fearless exploration

with a commitment to expanding the range and context ofthe string quartet.

In the process, Kronos has performed thousands of concerts worldwide,

released more than forty recordings of extraordinary breadth, and commissioned more than five hundred works and arrangements for string quartet.

The ensemble has also garnered numerous awards, including the title

“musicians ofthe year” from Musical America in 2003 and a Grammy for 

best chamber music performance in 2004.

Kronos’ adventurous, eclectic repertoire encompasses works by twentieth-century masters (Bela Bartok, Dmitri Shostakovich, Anton Webern),

contemporary composers (Sofia Gubaidulina, Arvo Part, Alfred Schnittke),

jazz legends (Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk), and

artists from farther afield (rock guitar hero Jimi Hendrix, Pakistani vocal

master Pandit Pran Nath, avant-garde saxophonist John Zorn). Integral to

Kronos’ work is a series of long-running, in-depth collaborations with

many ofthe world’s foremost composers, including Americans Philip

Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley; Azerbaijan’s Franghiz Ali-Zadeh; and

Argentina’s Osvaldo Golijov. Additional collaborators have included the

legendary Bollywood “playback singer” Asha Bhosle; renowned American

soprano Dawn Upshaw; Mexican pop-rockers Cafe Tacuba; Romanian

gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks; jazz greats Betty Carter and the Modern

Jazz Quartet; beat poet Allen Ginsberg; and pop-music icons David

Bowie and Tom Waits.

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The Quartet spends five months of each year on tour, appearing in the

world’s most prestigious concert halls, clubs, and festivals. Kronos records

exclusively for Nonesuch Records, with a discography that includes Pieces

ofAfrica (1992), a showcase of African-born composers that simultaneously

topped Billboard’s classical and world-music charts; Nuevo (2002), a Grammyand Latin Grammy-nominated celebration of Mexican culture; and the

2003 Grammy winner, Alban Berg: Lyric Suite.

WU MAN

Wu Man, whose name means “the sound of a voice,” is an internationally

renowned virtuoso at the pipa (a plucked-string instrument ofthe lute family),

who the Los Angeles Times has cited as “the artist most responsible for bringing the pipa to the Western world.” She is trained in the Pudong School of

pipa playing, one ofthe most prestigious classical styles ofimperial China,

and was the first artist at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music to earn a

master’s degree on the pipa. Since her arrival in the United States in 1990,

she has become a leading exponent of both traditional and contemporary pipa

repertoire, inspiring the composition of concertos and chamber works by

a new generation of Chinese composers that includes Tan Dun, Bun-Ching

Lam, Zhou Long, Bright Sheng, and Chen Yi. Wu Man has toured and

recorded with Yo-Yo Ma as part ofthe Silk Road Project and has also collaborated with such distinguished musicians and ensembles as Yuri Bashmet,

Cho-liang Lin, Ensemble Modem, the Kronos Quartet, and the Los Angeles 

Philharmonic New Music Group. Wu Man has recorded for Nimbus,

Nonesuch, Point Music, and Sony, and her first original composition, From

a Distance, was released on the Naxos World label. Her official Web site

is www.WuManPipa.org.

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