Kronos Quartet is set to receive the Polar Music Prize in a ceremony that will take place Tuesday at the Stockholm Concert Hall. King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden will hand out the awards to Kronos and their fellow laureate, singer/songwriter/poet Patti Smith. The Polar Music Prize, an international music prize awarded to individuals, groups, or institutions in recognition of exceptional achievements, carries a monetary value equivalent to approximately $155,000 ($1 million Swedish Kronor).

“For almost 40 years, the Kronos Quartet has been revolutionizing the potential of the string quartet genre when it comes to both style and content," reads the Polar Music Prize citation. "The same type of chamber music ensemble—two violins, a viola and a cello—for which Mozart and Beethoven wrote can also be used to comment on international politics, interpret avant-garde rock and incorporate music from every corner of the world.”

The Polar Music Prize was founded in 1989 by the late Stig Anderson, publisher, lyricist and manager of the legendary pop group ABBA. Previous laureates include Björk, Steve Reich, Joni Mitchell, Pierre Boulez, Bob Dylan, Renée Fleming, Valery Gergiev, B. B. King, György Ligeti, Miriam Makeba, Sonny Rollins, Ravi Shankar, Isaac Stern, and a host of others representing a wide range of countries, cultures, and continents.

The celebrations for Polar Music Prize Week 2011 began last Thursday with the opening of the Polar Music Prize Exhibition at Stockholm's Kungsträdgården. The outdoor exhibition features photos of previous Polar Music Prize Laureates taken by photographer Baldur Bragason and runs till tomorrow.

Today, as part of the Polar Music Talks, Kronos Quartet sits down with music journalist Camilla Lundberg to discuss their near four-decade long commitment to expanding the range and context of the string quartet. The talk takes place at Nalen in Stockholm, where, in a separate event, Patti Smith will be speaking with music journalist Jan Gradvall.

Tomorrow morning and afternoon, prior to the awards ceremony, Nalen will play host to the Polar Music Sessions, in which attendees exchange ideas on a wide range of topics exploring how music and entertainment shape the way we live, work, and play.

A night after Tuesday's awards ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall, the venue will host the Polar Music Prize Concert, featuring a sold-out concert from Patti Smith and her band Wednesday night. Smith will remain in Stockholm to conclude Polar Music Prize week with a book and CD signing at NK on Thursday.

For more information on the prize and the week's events, visit polarmusicprize.org. Watch a video retrospective on Kronos Quartet's career, created earlier this year for the announcement of the Polar Music Prize, here:

Kronos Quartet will give the New York premiere of Awakening: A Musical Meditation on the Anniversary of 9/11, for the Brooklyn Academy of Music's 2011 Next Wave Festival, with four nights of performances at the BAM Harvey Theatre, September 21–24, featuring special guests the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, conducted by Dianne Berkun. Individual tickets go on sale to the general public today. The concerts make New York magazine's Fall Preview issue of events to look forward to in the upcoming season. For more information, visit bam.org. For additional upcoming performances from Kronos Quartet, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.

To peruse Kronos Quartet's complete Nonesuch catalog, head to the Nonesuch Store, where CD orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s of the album at checkout. Kronos's latest Nonesuch recording is the forthcoming Steve Reich album with the Quartet's performance of Reich's WTC 9/11. Due out September 20, the CD/DVD is available for pre-order now.