Kronos Quartet presents Kronos Festival 2016: Explorer Series: A Thousand Thoughts featuring Kronos Quartet with Fodé Lassana Diabaté and the Homayun Sakhi Trio
2016-02-06
Miner Auditorium
SFJAZZ Center, 205 Franklin St, San Francisco, CA 94102
7:30 PM, Saturday, February 6, 2016

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

Program as of 2015-11-09:

• Wu Man solo segment
• Kronos Quartet with Fodé Lassana Diabaté, performing Fodé Lassana Diabaté (arr./realized by Jacob Garchik): Sunjata’s Time (US premiere - Composed for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire):
    I. Sumaworo
    II. Sogolon
    III. Nana Triban
    IV. Bala Faseke
    V. Bara kala ta

INTERMISSION

• Traditional (arr. Kronos, transc. Ljova): Tusen Tankar (A Thousand Thoughts)
• Donnacha Dennehy: One Hundred Goodbyes (Céad Slán) (West Coast premiere):
    I. Is Léan Liom (I grieve for you)
    II. Tomás Bán (White Thomas)
    III. Céad Slán Dhuit (A Hundred Goodbyes to You)

[7:32 PM lights down, dead air; 7:33 PM Kronos takes the stage and gets set to play]

1. [7:34 PM] Traditional (arr. Kronos, transc. Ljova, 2005): Tusen Tankar (A Thousand Thoughts)

Donnacha Dennehy (b. 1970): One Hundred Goodbyes (Céad Slán) (2011, West Coast premiere)

1. [7:40 PM] Is Léan Liom (I grieve for you)
2. [7:57 PM] Tomás Bán (White Thomas)
3. [8:05 PM] Céad Slán Dhuit (A Hundred Goodbyes to You)
   [8:09 PM work ends]

Fodé Lassana Diabaté (b. 1971) (arranged/realized by Jacob Garchik): Sunjata’s Time (2015, US premiere - Composed for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire)
featuring Kronos Quartet with Fodé Lassana Diabaté

1. [8:09 PM] Sumaworo
2. [8:14 PM] Sogolon
3. [8:18 PM] Nana Triban
4. [8:22 PM] Bala Faseke
5. [8:28 PM] Bara kala ta
   [set ends 8:33 PM]

[8:53 PM lights down, waiting]

1. [8:57 PM] Homayun Sakhi (b.1976): Rangin Kaman (Rainbow), (2008)
   featuring Kronos Quartet with the Homayun Sakhi Trio
   [show ends 9:23 PM; no encore]

Kronos Quartet

• Hank Dutt: viola;
• David Harrington: violin;
• John Sherba: violin;
• Sunny Jungin Yang: cello.

• Fodé Lassana Diabaté: balafon;
   
  the Homayun Sakhi Trio
• Abbos Kosimov: doyra;
• Salar Nader: tabla;
• Homayun Sakhi: Afghan rubâb.

Wu Man was originally scheduled to participate, but apparently she broke her wrist last month and is unable to perform while she heals. Fortunately, Kronos has lots of friends, and they were able to revise the program to feature the Homayun Sakhi Trio instead. I'm OK with that!

After a leisurely dinner at the Grove with John Hawkridge, we're back at SFJAZZ for the main event. Dead center, right in front of the soundboard. I have high expectations for the night.

The first set seemed strangely sedate upon opening, but thankfully, the pace picked up as the event progressed. The final work of the set, Fodé Lassana Diabaté's composition,Sunjata’s Time, was positively bouncy. In my imagination, changing the band to a more traditional African ensemble would have led irresistibly to mass butt shaking. Sometimes you gotta get up outta your head and do the full-tilt boogie! But I guess that would be too much to expect from a Kronos crowd…

I was expecting the second set to include a spotlight segment featuring only the Homayun Sakhi Trio, but instead, the program featured a single, fairly long work that put Kronos and the trio on roughly equal footing in terms of melodic developments and solo emphases. The piece began with four brief segments of call and response between the individual members of Kronos and Homayun Sakhi. Sort of an alap, I guess, or a friendly “nice to meet you, how do you do?” – as if the instruments were all meeting for the first time. This was succeeded by introduction of the percussionists, and then lengthy and varied development of multiple themes. Very cool! On the one hand, I'm sad that the piece wasn't longer (it was great!), but given that I was anxious to hustle over to the Great American Music Hall for the next event on our calendar, it's just as well that it didn't wind on too much!

Rebecca Wishnia posted a review of the show on SFCV.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!