Kronos Quartet with special guest Wu Man, pipa

Kronos Quartet visits with frequent collaborator Wu Man for a kaleidoscopic program of compositions written for the unique instrumentation of string quartet plus pipa. Terry Riley’s The Cusp of Magic creates a sweet and joyful synergy between the quartet and the plucked Chinese lute. Tan Dun’s otherworldly, ritualistic Ghost Opera was written for the first meeting of this quintet in 1994 and has remained in Kronos’ repertoire ever since. The two works are complemented by a Wu Man original composition and her arrangements of Chinese traditional themes, created for Kronos’ open access education initiative Fifty for the Future. “[Kronos’] ability to inhabit completely different musical and cultural worlds within minutes of each other betrays the quartet’s depth of study, musical and technical prowess, and devotion to a variety of musical cultures and styles” (The Strad).