Name: Kronos Festival: Program 4 (2024)
Start: 2024-06-23T17:00:00-07:00
Location: SFJAZZ

Sunday, June 23
Program 4, Miner Auditorium, 5PM
A Thousand Thoughts
A Live Documentary with the Kronos Quartet
Written and Directed by Sam Green & Joe Bini
Kronos Festival concludes with "A Thousand Thoughts," a live documentary that chronologically unfolds the quartet’s groundbreaking, multi-decade career. Wildly creative and experimental in form, "A Thousand Thoughts" is a meditation on music itself – the act of listening closely to music, the experience of feeling music deeply, and the power that music has to change the world. Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sam Green narrates the piece live onstage while the Kronos Quartet performs the score, and a rich blend of archival footage, photos, and interviews with members of the Kronos Quartet – as well as longtime collaborators like Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Terry Riley, Tanya Tagaq, Steve Reich – unspools on screen.
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
This year, Kronos Festival celebrates five decades of musical innovation, collaboration, and boundary-pushing artistry. The Festival will feature a slate of world and Bay Area premieres commissioned as part of the KRONOS Five Decades season and include guest artists Wu Man (pipa virtuoso and composer), Brooke Gladstone (journalist), David Lei (community activist), Tanya Tagaq (singer/composer), Nathalie Khankan (poet), Dale Minami (civil rights lawyer), Mahsa Vahdat (singer/composer), Sam Green (filmmaker), and the San Francisco Girls Chorus conducted by Valérie Sainte-Agathe. A highlight of this year's Festival is the farewell performances of violinist John Sherba and violist Hank Dutt, long-standing members of Kronos Quartet for more than 45 years. Their retirement marks the end of an era, making this Festival a poignant moment for both the quartet and devoted fans. The final day of the Festival features A Thousand Thoughts, a live documentary chronicling the quartet’s career, written and directed by Sam Green and Joe Bini. This will be the 41st and final performance of A Thousand Thoughts, which has been seen around the world since its debut at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.
This year the Festival will also feature six world premieres from Luna Composition Lab (LCL), a project founded in 2016 by composers Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid that provides mentorship, education, and resources for young female, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming composers ages 13-18. Kronos has partnered with LCL as their ensemble in residence this season, providing mentorship and workshop opportunities to the six 23–24 LCL Fellows as they developed their new compositions. Kronos is proud to showcase these premieres across the Festival in celebration of our next generation of musical voices.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & THANKS
Kronos Festival is produced by the Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA) and is part of the San Francisco–based 501(c)3 nonprofit’s KRONOS PRESENTS program. It is made possible by support from San Francisco Grants for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Bernard Osher Foundation.
Kronos Festival Design by Dan D. Shafer.