Tucson to hear Kronos' America at 250 concert before Carnegie Hall

So when Carnegie Hall called and asked him what his Kronos Quartet would like to do for the storied venue's 250th events, Harrington had an idea: "Three Bones," a triptych that looked at American history through the lens of intersecting music and culture.

The concert, which Kronos will perform at Carnegie Hall in New York on April 25, is divided into three parts, each focused on a different culture that has contributed to American history. 

Kronos will preview the first part at La Rosa in Tucson on Wednesday, April 1, when they perform the world premiere of Laura Ortman's "Waves Carve the Sound," the anchor of the indigent-focused "Ground." The piece was commissioned by the University of Arizona's Arizona Arts Live.

"Ground" also features works by Native-American composers including Raven Chacon, Link Wray and Tanya Tagaq.

The triptych's second part focuses on African-American music and culture, specifically Gullah Geechee, while the third explores Chinese and Chinese-American music.

"We've never done a concert like this before," Harrington explained during a phone call from home in San Francisco, where he formed Kronos in 1973. "There is so much incredible music and culture to explore and issues to explore, but in a Kronos concert, there's never been anything like this before for us."

This is the first time that Ortman has composed for Kronos Quartet in the 30-plus years since she first met Harrington when she was a student at the University of Kansas. Kronos was playing a concert and Ortman had a friend working the stage sneak her into the soundcheck. 

"Even before I met her, I saw this young person out in the soundcheck, and I thought that's the way I would have been when I was her age," Harrington said with a laugh. "You know, anybody that gets into a soundcheck is somebody I like already, and afterwards, she came up to me and said that she was a violinist and that she was a member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe."

Harrington said Ortman was interested in his Apache violin, a single horsehair-stringed tubular instrument made from hollowed-out agave stalk with sculpted sound holes. She had never seen one before so he offered to let her hold it and experiment.

"That's the first time I got to see one and try and play it," said Ortman. 

The Apache name for the instrument means “wood that sings,” which is how Ortman describes the sound it makes when a player plucks or strums it.

"It's just really small sounding. It's very earthy, and it just sings," she explained. "It's really special."

Years later, she befriended Chesley Goseyun Wilson in New York, one of just a few people — all from the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Southeastern Arizona — who make Apache violins. A few years after that, a friend from the White Mountain reservation gifted her an Apache violin, which she started using to make and write music including "Waves Carve the Sound." Another friend made her a case to hold it.

"So now I can travel with it," she said. "I really want to start bringing it around to concerts around the world and reintroducing the Apache violin to new audiences. Some people have never heard of it before."

She'll introduce it to Tucson at the La Rosa world premiere, playing alongside Kronos Quartet — violinists Harrington and Gabriela Díaz, violist Ayane Kozasa and cellist Paul Wiancko. She also will perform the work at Carnegie Hall, marking her first ever performance there. 

"I've been in New York since '97 and I worked so hard on making really unique sound with my music, where it's become art," she said. "I've been in the Whitney Biennial, I've played at MoMA, I've played at Guggenheim. ... This is a truly great kind of home-away-from-homecoming to be playing at Carnegie Hall so, I'm really amazed."

Harrington said he and Kronos followed Ortman's career over the years as she evolved into a "master composer, performer and force."

"So when I was thinking about what Kronos might do for 'Ground,' Laura is the first name that came to me," he said.

This is the first time Ortman, a fan of Kronos since long before she met Harrington at that 1993 sound check, has composed anything for them.  

Harrington described "Waves Carve the Sound" as "this magnificently inventive, life-affirming piece." The performance will feature projections created by Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee painter and sculptor Jeffrey Gibson that include Ortman's drawings and a poem by Oglala Lakota writer and poet Layli Long Soldier. Ortman's uncle Floyd Massey will orate in his native Apache language. 

This is Arizona Arts Live's fourth commission since Executive Director Chad Herzog came on board more than six years ago, including being part of the Kronos Quartet's "50 For the Future" 50th anniversary commissioning tour in 2024. 

"It felt very natural for us to be not only a commissioning partner, but really be commissioning 'Ground,' a piece that is being made and created here in Tucson but really telling so many stories of Native and Indigenous peoples," said Herzog, who brought Harrington and Ortman to Tucson for a week in January to work on the premiere. "It just felt right."

During that visit, Harrington and Ortman visited La Rosa in the former Benedictine Monastery chapel. 

"What a fabulous place for this piece to be premiered. It's just great," Harrington gushed. "You know, I've done thousands of concerts over the years, but I have to say, I think I might be looking forward to this one more than any other."