For more than 50 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet has reimagined what the string quartet experience can be. One of the most celebrated and influential groups of our era, Kronos has given thousands of concerts worldwide, released more than 70 recordings, and collaborated with many of the world’s most accomplished composers and performers across many genres. Through its nonprofit organization, Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA), Kronos has commissioned more than 1,100 works and arrangements for quartet. Kronos has received more than 40 awards, including the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre prizes.
Integral to Kronos’ work is a series of long-running commissioning collaborations with hundreds of composers worldwide, including Terry Riley, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Tanya Tagaq, Philip Glass, inti figgis-vizueta, Fodé Lassana Diabaté, and Steve Reich. In its most ambitious commissioning effort to date, KPAA has recently completed Kronos Fifty for the Future. Through this initiative, supported by Carnegie Hall and a robust coalition of partners, Kronos has commissioned—and distributed online for free—50 new string quartet works written by composers from around the world.
On recordings, Kronos has collaborated with Wu Man, Zakir Hussain, Asha Bhosle, Mahsa Vahdat, and Nine Inch Nails. The quartet has also performed with the likes of Paul McCartney, Allen Ginsberg, Rokia Traoré, David Bowie, Rhiannon Giddens, Caetano Veloso, and The National, among many others.
Kronos tours for several months each year, appearing in celebrated venues that include Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes, London’s Barbican, Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, as well as the Shanghai Concert Hall and Sydney Opera House.
Kronos’ expansive discography on Nonesuch Records includes three Grammy-winning albums—Terry Riley’s Sun Rings (2019), Landfall with Laurie Anderson (2018), and Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite (2003)—along with dozens of other acclaimed releases. Kronos’ most recent recording is Songs and Symphoniques: The Music of Moondog (2023), a collaboration between Kronos and the Ghost Train Orchestra revisiting Moondog’s vital and uplifting music for a new generation. Kronos’ work has also featured prominently in many films, including A Thousand Thoughts, the “live documentary” about Kronos, written and directed by Sam Green and Joe Bini, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018.
Based in San Francisco, KPAA staff manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including commissioning, concert tours and local performances, recordings, education programs, and an annual Kronos Festival in San Francisco.
