Fanatic Champions of the New The Kronos

By John Elson

In photos they look like something the cat dragged in. The rockabilly Stray Cats, that is. The solemn girl with the spiky aura of bleached hair -- she's the lead singer, right? And the dude with the shoulder-length curls -- for sure, he'd be at home pounding away on a battery of Slingerlands.

Guess again. The blond (Joan Jeanrenaud) is a cellist by craft, and the longhair (Hank Dutt) plays, appropriately, the viola. Along with violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, they form the Kronos Quartet, the nation's most adventurous chamber-music ensemble. No Haydn or Mozart for this earnest foursome. Works by Charles Ives and Anton Webern are probably the creakiest items in their wide, of-today repertoire. It ranges from Steve Reich's Different Trains, in which synthesized voices, recorded railroad sounds and minimalist arpeggios are combined in a haunting memoir, to a growling, down- and-dirty setting of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze.

At a time when chamber music seems to be enjoying something of a boom, the Kronos following rivals that of a rock band. The quartet gives more than 100 concerts annually, to largely young, near sellout crowds, and all three of its albums (Electra/Nonesuch) have made Billboard's classical charts. In addition, a March released recording of Reich's music, which includes Different Trains, is also on the charts.

Part of the Kronos allure is that the group spices up technically assured string playing with slick show-biz trappings. The four frequently perform in color-coordinated outfits, and their concerts are often akin to performance art. Beyond that, the Kronos is a resolute, almost fanatic champion of new music. It has given world premieres of more than 200 works, including five so far this year. "When people come to a Kronos concert," says Jeanrenaud, "they know they will hear something that requires a reaction, even if they don't like what they are hearing. You can't just sit back and relax."

As evidence, consider the Kronos concert at Manhattan's Alice Tully Hall last month. It was a multimedia program, arranged by the avant-garde Italian stage designer Alessandro Moruzzi, titled "Assembly Required." Dressed in unisex costumes of jet-black shirts and slacks, the four musicians walked onto a stage jumbled with speakers, tape equipment and an assortment of lights and mechanical gears. Before each of the scheduled four works, played without intermission, the Kronos members, in stately, choreographed movements, placed the lights and objects to cast different shadow forms on four screens set up behind their chairs. The program typically offered two New York premieres. In John Geist's edgy Fall from Grace, Kronos played live against the background of a tape of 18 string quartets prerecorded by the group. In Steven Mackey's Among the Vanishing, a setting of texts by poet Rainer Maria Rilke, the performers were joined by soprano Dawn Upshaw.

Named for the bad-tempered Titan of Greek mythology who was overthrown by his wily son Zeus, Kronos was founded by Harrington in Seattle 16 years ago. In 1977, after an uncertain era of itinerancy, the quartet moved to San Francisco, where two of the original members quit just before Kronos was to embark on a make-or-break subscription series. Following several frantic tryouts, Harrington and Dutt hired Sherba and Dutt's friend Jeanrenaud, who flew in from music school in Switzerland, sight-read a Bartok quartet and an original composition and got hired on the spot.

Kronos is novel in more than repertoire: it is a self-managed, nonprofit organization, whose members (aided by a small staff) divvy up some chores normally handled by nonperforming professionals. Jeanrenaud, for example, is responsible for the group's post-Mod Squad costumes. As primus inter pares, Harrington is the principal talent scout, sounding out composers who might create scores for the group. Such is the quartet's reputation as exponents of novelty, however, that hundreds of musicians volunteer works.

The quartet members insist they like what they play, although much of it is aridly inaccessible to untrained ears. (One lyrical exception: Samuel Barber's 1936 Adagio, memorably used in an orchestral version as the theme music for the Oscar-winning film Platoon.) Offstage, the four admit to musical tastes typically of thirtysomethings: the Beatles, blues, jazz. They have performed in concert with drummer Max Roach, and one popular encore is a setting of Thelonious Monk's 'Round Midnight.

Harrington argues that for Kronos, playing the classics is a waste of creativity, since so much vital new music is available to the quartet. "Any composer will tell you that the quartet is one of the most revealing musical forms," he says. Among the group's projected revelations: a recording of the 2-hour 10-minute Salome -- Dances for Peace, commissioned from a favorite Kronos composer, Terry Riley, and a video whose contents are still being discussed. As a musical democracy, the members must all approve a commission before it is accepted, and they resolve questions about interpretation at amicable, give-and-take rehearsals. Their concert programs carry a warning: contents subject to change. Why so? "We might," explains Harrington, "suddenly come across the most exciting thing we've ever played."

With reporting by Dennis Wyss/San Francisco