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Every day there are exciting things going on in Rochester's cultural arts community. Classical 91.5 hosts collaborate with and create highlights of various arts organizations, musicians and artists in and around our community.

Fifty for the Future

David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet and students
David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet and students

If you teach or study a string instrument, here's something that should delight you.

For the more than 40 years that they have been playing, the Kronos Quartet has been known for innovative, fascinating new music performances.  Recently, they have taken on a project to encourage others to learn through new and experimental music. They call it: Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire.

The Kronos Quartet is commissioning 50 new works - by 25 men and 25 women - devoted to contemporary approaches to music from composers around the world. It is a five-year project, with 10 new pieces released each year. Composers so far include Rhiannon Giddens, Philip Glass, Wu Man, Laurie Anderson, and many others to discover

Sheet music of the scores and parts, recordings, and notes are available for each of these pieces FOR FREE online - an amazing resource for music teachers and students.  

As Kronos Quartet Artistic Director David Harrington wrote on the project website, "This new set of resources will present string quartet music as a living art form, providing emerging musicians with both an indispensable library of learning materials as well as a blueprint for their own future collaborations with composers."

Music students from around the world have been taking on the challenge of these new pieces shared by Kronos. You can hear performances submitted by groups playing these new works here.

What are you waiting for?

Mona Seghatoleslami is the Music Director, host and producer on WXXI Classical 91.5 FM weekdays from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. She also hosts the lunchtime concert series Live From Hochstein Wednesdays at 12:10 p.m., interviews musicians, produces special programs, and works on any project she can find that helps connect people and music in our community through WXXI.