iPlay iMusic

Kronos keeps pushing the bounds
Friday, May 4, 2007

Photo courtesy of csuchico.edu

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

On Saturday, Kronos Quartet violinist David Harrington will be playing an iPod violin.

What, you may ask, is an iPod violin?

Good question. In fact, Harrington himself doesn't know.

" 'Playing' may not be the right word," Harrington said. "Maybe 'operating' it or 'manipulating' it would be more appropriate."

The Kronos Quartet is combining forces with the artist Trimpin -- who invents new instruments and musical objects for his sculptural exhibits -- for their performance, "4cast: Unpredictable," at Montclair State University. Among other experiments, the quartet will be playing Trimpin's altered instruments, or "toys," and interacting with machines that feed off their sound.

"This is going to be unlike any concert we've done," said Harrington, one of the quartet's founders. "It's the idea that musicians can be inspired by toys, objects or even sounds from the environment."

Trimpin's gallery exhibit of "Phffft." Courtesy of henryart.org

This collaboration will cover unknown territory for the string quartet and the artist. The Kronos Quartet is a champion of new music, having commissioned more than 600 pieces over its 34-year history, but it rarely steps beyond music written for string instruments.

Trimpin, on the other hand, is well-known for manipulating objects and creating sound structures, such as a six-story xylophone or a gamelan of bells suspended by electronic magnets. What he's not known for is working with others.

"A lot of the time, he works by himself with a technician," said Harrington. "All of a sudden, we're his objects."

Members of the quartet, which also includes John Sherba, Hank Dutt and Jeffrey Ziegler, spent time at Trimpin's California studio to try out the "variations on our instruments," as Harrington calls them.

"We ended up asking questions like 'What is a group?' and 'What is music?' " he said. "What are the borders of the musical experience?"

Diagram of new music. Image courtesy of cityofsound.typepad.com.

In some ways, "4cast" is very much like any other Kronos concert: It pushes the envelope and goes bravely where no musical group has gone before. Since its founding in 1973, the quartet has broken the classical music dress code, created new sounds with their instruments, promoted and played previously unheard world music and become a patron of young composers.

"We were struggling to play something that had never been played before," Harrington said.

Recently, Harrington worked with a group of up-and-coming quartets as part of a Carnegie Hall mentorship program, teaching them pieces from the enormous Kronos repertoire. He realized that their struggle was different: They were learning how to play music that had been played before -- but they had never been taught how.

"A lot of times young players have no idea how we do what we do," Harrington said. "There is a body of information that we can help them with, and we've begun to realize that."

Perhaps next year, he'll teach them a tune on the iPod violin.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.