The Next Festival of Emerging Artists with Kronos Quartet

The multi-GRAMMY-winning Kronos Quartet, which has “broken the boundaries of what string quartets do” and “changed music with its open-eared and open-minded approach” (The New York Times) joins The Next Festival of Emerging Artists, returning to PS21 for the third straight year.

The program features world premieres by some of today’s most adventurous voices, and is a special celebration in honor of the 90th birthday of Terry Riley, known as the founding father of minimalism.

Next Festival Founding Artistic Director Peter Askim leads a string orchestra of gifted early-career string players in Terry Riley’s The Sands (composed for Kronos) and the world premieres of Jungyoon Wie’s Starlings, inti figgis-vizueta’s music by yourself for string orchestra, and Askim’s own new work, Songs My Mother Taught Me. The program also includes GRAMMY-winning composer Pascal Le Boeuf’s kinetic Transition Behavior and Serenade for Strings by Jan Radzyknski.

The fellows of the Next Festival will spend the week prior to the performance in residence at PS21, workshopping the pieces and conducting community engagements at Chatham Middle School.