In anticipation of this years MusicNOW festival here in Cincinnati, I had an opportunity to speak with David Harrington, one of the founding members of the Kronos Quartet. Kronos is playing a two night residency for this years festival on Wednesday and Thursday night.

ENS – David, the Kronos Quartet started over 35 years ago and yet today still continue to be one of the most innovative and experimental groups around, how have you kept things so fresh for so long?

David Harrington – Well, for me, keeping my ears open 24 hours a day is something I’ve been trying to do since I was a kid. It’s not that difficult to be inspired. There are so many wonderful things going on in the world of music right now, I can’t even believe I’m able to be a part of this, it’s so thrilling and exciting. And I never know where the next interesting thing is going to come from.

Actually, right now there is an 18 year old musician we are going to be working with who is very close to our headquarters in San Fransisco. Things in the world of music have never been as exciting as they are now.

ENS – And you have worked with a lot of younger composers in the past few years, talk a bit about your effort to work with composers under the age of 30.

David Harrington – Yes, well what’s happened in the last several years since the 30th year of Kronos, we started a call for scores from composers under the age of 30. And the idea was that alot of times the youngest composers are a bit too shy and might think Kronos would not be interested in their music, and that there might be a disconnect between us and some of them and we decided to change that a bit.

We have now had 4 under 30 commissions in the last 5 years, a couple from the United States, one from Mexico and one from Isreal and we now have 4 amazing new pieces. The perspectives from these varying age groups to me really provides a balance that is more in line with reality. And trying to align oneself with reality is really a lot about what it’s like to be a musician. What I’m trying to do is find music that feels right to play. It allows me to feel totally balanced. As much as I would love to have pieces written by some of the masters that have been writing it for so long, like Steve Reich, Terry Riley, or Henrich Goretsky, people we have ongoing relationships with, but it seems to be important to capture the sounds and the viewpoints and feelings of people from many different perspectives. I’m always looking for a way for our concerts and pieces to feel aligned.

ENS – Speaking of the pieces you do David, how do you decide what to work with and on, considering you are probably overwhelmed with options?

David Harrington – For the last 35 years, I have kind of been the point person when it comes to new projects for Kronos. And if it magnetizes my ear I have been very fortunate that the other members of Kronos have given me a huge license to be myself and explore. When you do something like that for this long, you start feeling so fortunate to be a part of this vast community of people interested in being a part of a musical experience.

For example, in Cincinnati we will be playing a piece i heard on this incredible CD, its a re-release of some early 78′ recordings. Its a CD called Black Mirror, the music recorded in NY in 1918 by a Greek Singer who’s name is Marika Papagika. We will be playing one of his songs and its just so beautiful. You know after you experience music like that you can’t imagine your life without it.

There are incredible difficulties in the world, but there are some very amazing things as well and I’m going to be concentrating on those.

ENS – You mentioned your Cincinnati appearance at MusicNOW, tell us about getting to know Bryce Dessner and what else we can expect from your performance.

David Harrington – First of all, I should say that getting to know Bryce has been a wonderful aspect of being included in the festival. I did not know him before but he is a very generous musician and has put me in touch with several really fantastic musicians.

Tyondai Braxton (Battles) and Richard Reed Parry have written some new pieces we will be playing the first night, and we are really looking forward to rehearsing with them and including their music in our concerts. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be interesting too because we will only be working with Richard the day before and Tyondai the day of the performance. So on those two pieces it’s going to be as fresh as it can get.

On March 12th we will be playing several pieces from our next album, as well as “Dark Was The Night” from the Red Hot compilation. And, when we found out Toumane (Diabate) was going to be there, well, he is one of my all time favorite musicians, we wanted to play something that would lead into his work.

ENS – You mentioned the Dark Was The Night compilation, how did you get involved and why did you choose the Blind Willie Johnson cover?

David Harrington – It’s been one of my very favorite pieces of American music since I first heard it. And so Bryce and I were talking about MusicNOW and he mentioned the Red Hot compilation. He asked if there was anything I wanted to record that I have not done yet. I quickly said yes and told him we had this amazing version of Dark Was The Night and felt we could record it better than we had been playing it live, and he said that they had been thinking of including that song on the compilation already, which i had no idea about. After we decided to do it our sound engineer suggested i should restringing my violin with guitar strings. We recorded it that way and will perform it that was at MusicNOW as well. I actually have to run out today and get my violin re-strung for the event! But as far as the Red Hot compilation goes it should be said that it’s very hard to sequence that many artists and I think they did a beautiful job on the album and for me it’s just really something I’m very proud to be a part of.

The Kronos Quartet are playing both Wednesday and Thursday night at MusicNOW 2009.