Choir experiences ‘Awakening’ with Kronos Quartet

By Dan Kunz

Talk about a terrific resume builder. The Concordia Singers, a select choral group featuring singers of the Nittany Valley Childrens Choir, will get to perform with the Kronos Quartet on Nov. 10, when the Grammy-winning, genre-defying string group brings its new multimedia presentation, “Awakening,” to Eisenhower Auditorium.

“We are thrilled to be performing with the Kronos Quartet,” Concordia director Lou Ann Shafer said. “The movement we will be singing is ‘Winter Was Hard’ by Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen.”

In addition to that piece from the 1988 Kronos album of the same name, “Awakening” will touch on folk music from Argentina, Afghanistan, Turkey, India and even the United States, all filtered through the quartet’s contemporary-classical, avant-garde lens.

For Shafer, such a distinct honor comes with rigorous preparation.

“Our preparation includes lots and lots of rehearsal,” she said of her singers, who range in age from 8 to 18.

“First we learn the music, then the pronunciation of the Swedish lyrics and then unite the two,” she said. “After learning the music and text, then we work to memorize the piece.”

The Concordia Singers regularly perform challenging four-part harmony works, and its members are expected to garner a comprehension of basic music theory and sight singing.

In their almost 40-year career, the Kronos Quartet, meanwhile, have continued to push classical music to its limits, and with 41 albums to their credit, they continue to cater to mainstream listeners and classical aficionados. They have been sought after by left-of-center musicians such as Philip Glass and John Zorn. They have ins with the alternative rock scene, having been sampled by Faith No More and appearing on a Nine Inch Nails album. They’ve even collaborated with Nelly Furtado and Dave Matthews.

It was arguably the 2000 film “Requiem for a Dream,” however, that made Kronos a hip name to drop. Soothing and claustrophobic, sedate and striking, the quartet turned composer Clint Mansell’s works into more than incidental film music; the score became a parallel complement to the dark cinematic narrative of drug use gone awry. Composers and string instrumentalists have praised the “Requiem” score for Kronos’ restrained use of vibrato when playing, contributing to the bleak urgency of the sound. The piece “Lux Aeterna” saw subsequent appearances in movie trailers and TV commercials and is possibly the quartet’s best known composition.

Kronos’ current lineup includes founding member David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola) and Jeffrey Zeigler (cello).

Joe Netta, a Penn State MFA candidate in sculpture, has been commissioned to craft the set design for the evening’s performance. Working with the medium of metal, Netta will create and erect four assemblages for the musicians to play off, which he hopes will have an intriguing effect on the way the group’s sound is amplified.

The Kronos Quartet will perform at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 10 at Eisenhower Auditorium, University Park. Visit www.cpa.psu.edu or call 800-ARTS-TIX for more information.