Here's a short piece I wrote for Seattle Weekly that I like a lot:
Kronos Quartet
November 16, 2013 @ Neptune Theatre
No chamber ensemble in recent memory has done more to advance the cause of contemporary art music than the Kronos Quartet. The group, founded in Seattle by violinist David Harrington, played their first concert here forty years ago this month. Since then, they have collaborated not only with the most prominent contemporary composers—people like Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams—but also with a number of popular musicians such as Amon Tobin, Sigur Rós, and most recently, Bryce Dessner. Dessner, guitarist for The National, supplied four compositions for the quartet’s most recent album, Aheym (“homeward,” in Yiddish). To paraphrase my colleague Andrew Gospe, the compositions are not boring: Dessner has respectable compositional chops. Kronos’s performance at the Neptune will feature Dessner’s Tenebre as well as a performance of Predator Songstress: Warrior with the Degenerate Art Ensemble. Other works on the program highlight the group’s diverse and extensive repertoire, from Wagner to Penderecki.