It was thirty years ago today: Kronos Quartet's album Black Angels, featuring composer George Crumb’s title piece, was released on Nonesuch. Kronos's connection to the piece dates back to the ensemble's origins when, in 1973, violinist David Harrington was inspired to form the group after hearing the work. Crumb's piece sets a powerful tone for the collection, which addresses the political, physical, and spiritual consequences of war, and includes works by Tallis, Ives, Shostakovich, and Istvan Marta. "As a piece of music, George Crumb's Black Angels remains at the heart of Kronos," Harrington says in a new short film about the album you can watch here. "It seems as relevant today as it did in 1973. As an album, Black Angels set our course for the next thirty years and beyond."

Kronos Quartet has released a short film edited by Evan Neff scored to its performance of an excerpt of Peace Be Till, which composer Zachary Watkins wrote for the group in 2018. In the piece, Dr. Clarence B. Jones, the former personal counsel, speechwriter, and advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., reads King's defense of nonviolent direct action in his famed Letter from Birmingham Jail, which Jones calls "the symphony of social justice." In 1963, Jones had smuggled King's words from the Birmingham, Alabama, jail cell in which he was being held for his participation in a peaceful demonstration.

Kronos Quartet gave a concert and Q&A in celebration of its 40th anniversary at WNYC/WQXR's The Greene Space in NYC on March 24, 2014. The venue revisited the special event with an encore stream. "For forty years, the Kronos Quartet has been reimagining the string quartet experience," said host Helga Davis. "They've performed thousands of concerts worldwide, and their list of collaborators is a who's who of twentieth and twenty-first century music." You can watch it here.

Laurie Anderson and Terry Riley will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters when it holds its annual induction and award ceremony in mid-May, joining eleven other new members, including Carroll Dunham, Julian Schnabel, Edwidge Danticat, Mary Gaitskill, and Colson Whitehead. An exhibition of art, architecture, books, and manuscripts by new members and recipients of awards will be on view in the Academy's galleries in NYC from May 21 to June 21.

Carnegie Hall has announced its 2020–21 concert season, and featured among the performers taking the esteemed hall's stages are a number of artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal, including Rhiannon Giddens, who is a Perspectives artist for the season, John Adams, Chris Thile, Caroline Shaw, and Kronos Quartet.

Congratulations to Brad Mehldau, Attacca Quartet, and Kronos Quartet, who won Grammy Awards on Sunday, and to Yola, who performed at the Premiere Ceremony in Los Angeles at which those awards were presented. Mehldau earned his first Grammy when Finding Gabriel won for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. Attacca Quartet received the Grammy for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for Caroline Shaw's Orange. Kronos Quartet's recording of Terry Riley's Sun Rings won the Grammy for Best Engineered Album, Classical; it was engineered by Leslie Ann Jones; mixed by John Kilgore, Judy Sherman, and David Harrington; and mastered by Robert C. Ludwig.

Congratulations to all of the Nonesuch nominees for the 62nd Grammy Awards: Yola with four nominations, including Best New Artist and her album Walk Through Fire; Dan Auerbach for Producer of the Year; Rhiannon Giddens for "I'm on My Way" from her album with Francesco Turrisi, there is no Other; Brad Mehldau's Finding Gabriel, Joshua Redman Quartet's Come What May, Caroline Shaw and Attacca Quartet's Orange; and Kronos Quartet for Terry Riley's Sun Rings.

Congratulations to Kronos Quartet, which has won the prestigious Ouevreprijs—career achievement prize—at the Edison Klassiek Awards. "Kronos Quartet has recorded more than fifty albums, invariably filled with new notes for the string quartet," says the jury. "It is high time to crown this unique achievement with an Edison Klassiek Ouevreprijs." The annual Dutch music prize will be presented in a ceremony and concert in Amsterdam during NPO 2's Podium Witteman on NPO 2 on November 24.

Kronos Quartet has shared a video for "One Earth, One People, One Love," from Sun Rings, the group's 2002 collaboration with composer Terry Riley of which Nonesuch released the first full recording earlier this year. (This week also marks the 30th anniversary of Kronos Quartet's first full-length Riley album for Nonesuch, Salome Dances for Peace.) Directed by Willie Williams, the new video was made by Treatment Studios for the Sun Rings multimedia live show, which Kronos has performed nearly fifty times in eleven countries and will do so again this concert season.

The line-up for the 2020 Big Ears Festival has been announced, and as usual, featured among the performers are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Devendra Banhart, Kronos Quartet, Terry Riley, and Caroline Shaw. Big Ears will be held at venues throughout downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, March 26–29, 2020. Weekend passes go on sale this Thursday.

Kronos Quartet / Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA) has announced the launch of a new website for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, its ongoing multi-year commissioning, performance, education, and legacy initiative. The site provides a gateway to discover, explore, and learn contemporary string quartets composed by twenty-five women (including Laurie Anderson and Rhiannon Giddens) and twenty-five men from around the world. The free digital learning library currently contains thirty scores and parts, recordings, and supplemental learning materials. Launched in 2015 with Lead Partner Carnegie Hall, the initial scores have been downloaded more than 14,000 times in eighty-eight countries and territories worldwide.

The line-up for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass has been announced, and among the performers are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Emmylou Harris, Kronos Quartet, Robert Plant, Punch Brothers, Chris Thile, and Yola. The free, annual outdoor music festival returns for the nineteenth year to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, October 4–6, 2019. You can hear songs from all these artists in a playlist here.