We're thrilled to announce the tour dates for Kronos' 09/10 season. We'll be performing all over the US and in seven countries, so check the compete list of tour dates to see if we'll be performing near you!

This year Kronos has their very own Carnegie Hall Perspectives series, featuring 5 performances and and a Professional Training Workshop. The performances include guest artists such as Wu Man (Nov. 3), Victor Gama and Margaret Leng Tan (Mar. 12), Tanya Tagaq, Ritva Koistinen, Kimmo Pohjonen & Samuli Kosminen (Mar. 13), and Alim & Fargana Qasimov, Homayoun Sakhi and Dohee Lee (Mar. 14). Also planned are world premieres and New York premieres by Terry Riley (Mar. 11), J.G. Thirlwell (Mar. 12), Derek Charke, and Hurdy Gurdy (Mar 13.) 

As part of the Carnegie Hall Perspectives series, the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall is hosting a weeklong, tuition-free workshop for emerging string quartets with Kronos Quartet and guest artist Wu Man.  Centered in collaborative and innovative repertoire, this workshop will feature works commissioned for Kronos by Tan Dun, Michael Gordon, and Terry Riley. The week will include a public master class, and will culminate in a performance at Carnegie Hall. String quartets and pipa artists are invited to apply.

More highlights later this year include Kronos' four performances as part of the John Adams curated West Coast, Left Coast festival presented by the Los Angeles Philarmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Kronos opens the festival on Nov. 21 with a special performance featuring Kronos, Terry Riley, Matmos, and Mike Einziger. On Dec. 1, Kronos is joined by David Barron for a rare live performance of Harry Partch's U.S. Highball, and on Dec. 3 & 4, Kronos joins the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the world premiere of a new work by Academy Award nominated Thomas Newman, who has scored films such as American Beauty, WALL-E, and The Shawshank Redemption.

There are several other noteworthy premieres this season - A Chinese Home receives its premiere at Carnegie Hall (Nov. 3), followed by performances at Stanford Lively Arts (Jan. 16), Krannert Center (Jan. 28), Clarice Smith Center (Feb. 13), and Notre Dame (Mar. 27). Jon Rose's Music from Fences receives a US premiere at Purdue (Feb. 4), and a new work by Maria Schneider receives its premiere at Duke (Apr. 10.)

Also planned this season are performances at the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad 2010 in Canada (Jan. 30), plus concerts in Poland (Sept 11, 12, 15, and 24), Spain (Sept 20),
Germany (Sept. 26, May 7 and 13),  and France (May 9).

Visit our website to see if Kronos is performing near you, and click the Events tab on Facebook to RSVP!

And following up on the New York Times review - in case you missed it, here's the full info about our new album Floodplain:

We're excited to announce that our new album Floodplain is out now on Nonesuch Records. The album includes new works written for Kronos by Ramallah Underground and Aleksandra Vrebalov, traditional works from Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran, contemporary interpretations of classical music of Azerbaijan and India, and popular music from Egypt and Iraq. Listen to Floodplain (our website | Facebook | MySpace), and purchase (Amazon | iTunes.)

The title and concept of the album come from the idea that floodplains are fertile tracts of land that border rivers which are prone to devastating flooding. The album was inspired by the idea that floodplains experience new life after a catastrophe, just as cultures that undergo great difficulty will experience creative fertility.

Says David Harrington, Kronos' founder and artistic director - “Floodplain was imagined and recorded during one era in American politics, and then released during a very different one. Our work is a continuously evolving interaction with the world we are a part of, and we are always trying to find ways to reflect what it means to be musicians today.”

Listen to Floodplain (our website | Facebook | MySpace), and purchase (Amazon | iTunes).

We're hitting the road again next week, and we'd love to see you this summer! We'll be performing in Australia in June, Europe and New York in July, plus two concerts at home in Northern California in August. Take a look at our tour schedule on Facebook and our website to see if we're performing near you!

Our summer starts off with a trip to Australia, where we'll perform at the Sydney Opera House on June 5 and Melbourne Recital Centre on June 6. Both performances include Jon Rose's Music from 4 Fences, in which Kronos puts down their violins and actually bows a fence! View photos on Facebook and Flickr, and stay tuned for behind the scenes updates on Twitter and YouTube while we're preparing for the world premiere.

In July we'll be in Germany (July 5 - Duisburg, July 11 - Dalheim), France (July 7 - Lyon), Poland (July 9 - Szczecin), and Ireland (July 12 - Louth, July 14 - Galway). After that we're stopping in Brooklyn to play a free Celebrate Brooklyn! concert in Prospect Park on July 16.

Finally, in August we'll be closer to home - come see us in Gualala, CA for the Art in the Redwoods Festival on August 15, or join us in Nicasio, CA at Rancho Nicasio on August 16 to have some BBQ and listen to Kronos on the lawn in the sunshine.

Learn more & see a complete list of upcoming performances on our website and Facebook.

The very last of the In C interviews: the amazing Morton Subotnick.

Can you give me a bit of background about the Tape Center and your relationship with Terry?

Okay, well the tape center was a co-op, a very early electronic music studio that Ramon Sender and I started in 1961, I think it was. We also had a couple of performance spaces, so we did lots of performances. And we were a group of us, it was Terry, Pauline Oliveros, Ramon, myself and several other people were doing concerts together, La Monte Young. I was doing some conducting, we were all graduate students in the late 50s in San Francisco, so we all sort of hung out together and did concerts and helped each other. And at a certain point after graduate school Terry went off to Paris, La Monte went to New York, Pauline was gone for a little bit, but not long, but she was gone, and Ramon and I were in San Francisco and we formed, created the Tape Center, so I had known Terry for some time. We had actually improvised together and did concerts and things like that through that period. And that’s the answer to your two questions.

When Terry got back from Paris, you commissioned In C, correct?

Well, he called it a commission. What happened was in the 64-65 season, we had been going for about three years and in the 64/65 season we decided to do concerts of local composers, full evening of local composers. We hadn’t done that before, we were doing concerts of everybody and then we’d do a piece here and a piece there. And so I knew that Terry was coming back and either called him or wrote to him, and asked him if he would be back in San Francisco in time for a November concert, November 64, and he said he would, and I said, “Well why don’t you write a piece we can all play”, and that turned into In C.

What was the premiere like?

November 1964 was at the edge of the beginnings of the psychedelic movement with, you know, the flower children and the whole thing. The Big Trips Festival sort of kicked it off and that was, I believe, right after that, I don’t really remember, but I think it was right after that. But in any case it was all around the same time.

There had been something in the air, everybody sort of felt it and knew it, including the police department and fire department. So they decided, the fire department and the police department decided that this San Francisco Tape Music Center was perhaps the seat of all the trouble that was beginning to brew, and sent people to sniff out the place to see if they could find drugs or something or the other - which they didn’t - because we weren’t dealing with anything like that.

The next thing I knew, we learned the tape center building had been the headquarters for - I think it was some big labor, either a west coast or nationwide labor union - which had been on the McCarthy Un-American Activities list, and the place had gotten closed down as a result of that. And I think what had occurred was that somewhere during that period the people who ran the place had put in for a permit to do some repairs or maybe changes in the place. In any case, they got evicted and the place closed down.

Years later we got the place, and the fire department discovered that there had been a building permit to put in extra but it had never been done, so they decided that since the work had not been done, they had to close it down, we couldn’t bring an audience in anymore. They put signs up; they thought that would get rid of everything.

They put a sign up on the outside of the front door, and it was maybe three or four days before Terry’s concert, and I just didn’t know quite what to do. I visited our lawyer, well, our lawyer, a friend of ours, a friend of mine who was a lawyer and he was actually expecting to get served…the Republican Party had sued him for something and so he was hiding behind a sofa because to get served with this warrant you had to be physically actually handed a warrant.

So the way we arranged the meeting, he and – his wife and I sat on the sofa and he sat behind the sofa and it was like a James Bond film… maybe not even James Bond, it was like some strange English sitcom. But I sat on the sofa and he was behind the sofa and we talked. So he couldn’t be seen. And he kept asking me, I explained the situation, and he said, “Which way does the door open?“ And I didn’t know what he was talking about, I said, “Well, I think it opens out,” and he said, “Good, open the door and then no one will see the sign, and then the audience will come in.”

We didn’t advertise the first concert, the first concert was word of mouth, and then there would be a review two days later in the paper, and then we would have a second concert. So we didn’t think the fire department would show up, they didn’t know when the first concert was, but they would know when the second one was, because it would be out in the paper.

So I played in the premiere, and then the second concert I waited for the fire department; I didn’t actually play in the second performance. And sure enough a man from the fire department showed up, and he was very, very perplexed and frustrated because he thought that he had closed us down. And so In C was actually playing when he got in, when he came upstairs. And he said “What do you guys DO here?” He really was just completely confused as to what was going on. So I said, “Well look, there’s a concert going, why don’t we go in?” It had just started, so “duh-dee duh-dee duh-dee” on forever, you know.

And people were all dressed in strange… sort of not costumes like in a costume ball, but girls had long dresses sort of with flowers and sort of Victorian like and things people hadn’t seen very much. And I think Terry was wearing, he would remember better than I, but I think he was wearing kind of a great big purple bow tie, and it was, you know, it was festive.

But this was very strange to this fireman fellow, and so he came out and he said, he sort of calmed down a little bit, but he was still very confused. And we talked for a good 30-35 minutes. I showed him around, and I think there was something else on the concert, I think that wasn’t the only thing, I think there was an intermission after In C. But I don’t remember the program exactly.

But I do know that while we were talking, we had a little table out in the foyer where there were a lot of reviews and things like that, and he came, the audience started coming out, and one person saw the fireman as in costume, and took his hat and sort of carried it around.

I managed to get his hat back and give it to him. In the meantime, Al Frankenstein, who was a critic at the time came out and asked me, “What was going on here, what was that music?” And I said something, I don’t know quite what, I said, “Well, you know this is a moment when we’re really finished with all the post-Webern stuff, this was a moment when we’re…it’s kind of a celebration of moving on to a different kind of music.”

I said, “All I did was ask Terry to write a place that we could all play, and it’s in C! It’s sort of symbolic of let’s simplify things, let’s not make everything so complicated and esoteric.”

I don’t remember the exact words, but they came on the back on the recording when they recorded it in Buffalo. They quoted Al Frankenstein in the newspaper, and when I read it I realized that’s what I was telling Al Frankenstein at the thing.

But the funny part there was the guy from the fire department was reading all these wonderful reviews by Al Frankenstein, and he started with this deep laugh, “Ho ho ho, Frankenstein, eh?” And he was standing right on one side, and Frankenstein was standing on the other side, and I said, “Well, Al Frankenstein is one of the most well-known musicologists and critics of new music in our time right now.” And he said, “Wow, what did you do, pay him off?” (laughs) Anyway, that was a memorable moment; the whole time was really quite wonderful.

What was it like to perform in it on the first night?

It didn’t change anything, for us, at that moment. But all I can say is everything changed from that point, in those few months on, nothing was the same again. It certainly was at the heart of a major shift that was taking place.

We were doing all sorts of things over a period of years. The first light shows, before the rock bands. Then they moved into the rock bands, and lots of multimedia and all sorts of things going on at that point. So things were changing very, very rapidly.

When we felt at the time, I really did feel what I was telling Frankenstein was true, that somehow Terry had captured what a lot of people were trying to do somehow in the joy of that one piece; it was a very joyful kind of event. But I had no idea that there was going to be a whole movement that was going to be, this phasing and all this stuff that came after, but I do think it’s hard to say what caused what to happen. I think it was just a wonderful moment of things coming together.

Did In C influence you as a composer?

No, it didn’t influence me. Well, who knows. Everything influences everyone. But it wasn’t a direct influence.

I think most of us were aimed very straight, we knew where we were going by that time and we all went in our directions. I was moving towards technology; Silver Apples of the Moon came out in 67, which was my claim to whatever. And it certainly would be hard to see any influence from In C or what other people were doing at the time.

It was a pretty unique experience. Each person was sort of finding… Terry did his thing, and Terry didn’t continue with In C. He went on with the stuff he was doing like, Poppy No Good. I mean, it was there, but it wasn’t really exactly that.

Steve Reich went on to what he was doing - he was already trying to do what he was doing. And I think Terry and Steve intersected much more than a person like I did. I was moving, I was using technology and multimedia and very dedicated to that from 1959, 1960 straight through, so it didn’t directly influence me.

I think it was just a very explosive time, about a five, six-year period and everything was about to change. We just happened to be there at the moment. Put our little fingers, took them out of the dike, and the dike spewed water all over the place. I don’t think anybody expected exactly what happened, it really was much more than we expected.

It’s so interesting to see how a younger generation of people react to In C, and are able to compare it to elements in popular music. It’s just fascinating to see the connection and how far things have gone.

Early next week I’m giving a lecture on that, actually, parts of that. But clearly from the early, 61, 62, 63, through the whole decade up through the premiere of Einstein on the Beach…I don’t know exactly when that was, but my guess was it was the early 70s. I think that whole period the intersection of the pop music of the time was enormous.

I came to NY shortly after that. My studio was right about two doors from where all the rock bands played, I forget the name of the venue, it’s a different place now. I would work all night long, I was working on Silver Apples of the Moon actually at that point. And people from the rock bands would, you know, two o’clock, three o’clock in the morning would come up to my studio, there would always be someone up there, or Andy Warhol’s group, they would always be around, just sitting and talking. They would have been talking about it, because when they came in they’d say, “Let’s go over, see what this guy is doing over there.”

I’ve run into these people over the years, and there was a lot of cross-fertilization. I thought, for instance, I thought I was doing fine art music, and that it was certainly going to have an impact on fine art music. Well, it didn’t really have as big of an influence on fine art music as it did on the pop world.

And I think that was true of In C too. I don’t think Terry thought of himself as a popular composer, he was just doing what he did. And we thought we were non-profit and all that stuff, and then the light shows that we were working with ended up in the Fillmore West, traveling with the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead and all that stuff.

So it wasn’t like it was concocted to do that, it just spilled over into everything. But some of us thought that the medium of electronics was best suited for the recording.

That’s why I started working on things like Silver Apples of the Moon, I was making records that were works of art. And the fine art world, the so-called serious or classical music world, never did that. Stockhausen did, but most of the people did not do that. They were still writing, even with electronics, they were writing standard stuff.

The people who understood the medium were the rock bands, were the Beach Boys and the Beatles, they understood the medium. That’s partly why they were attracted to come into my studio, they didn’t go up to Columbia or Princeton. I don’t think there was any consciousness of this.

I know for myself there wasn’t, you just felt that you were in the middle of something really wonderful that was happening. And that’s the way In C felt. I think it was very, I don’t know exactly how it happened.

That evening the audience wasn’t the same audience, even though we had always had interesting audiences, young audiences, but it somehow was a different audience. I mentioned the dressing-up. I remember people not looking the same that night, that they had looked before, or from then on.

But it wasn’t because of In C, it sort of coincided with In C. I don’t think that anybody had any idea, if they did, I didn’t know about it, of what In C was gonna sound like or be like before it happened. So it wasn’t like it had brought people, it was just incredibly timely, just right in the centre of when everything was just about to explode. It really felt that way. It was the perfect piece for that, just it had a really, very festive feeling to it.

Can you tell me what you’re going to be playing on Friday?

(Laughs) If Jon Gibson loans me his clarinet, I’ll be playing the clarinet.

I know that you’ve worked with a lot of people that are on the bill for this performance before. Can you tell me who you’ve worked with before?

I don't know who’s on it. I didn’t look! (Laughs.) I just keep looking up at the calendar to make sure I don’t miss it.

In C Interviews: Michael Harrison!

When was the first time you heard Terry Riley's In C? What was that experience like?

I first heard In C in the early 1980’s when I was studying North Indian singing with Terry and our guru Pandit Pran Nath. It was an affirmation of what music can be and a natural expression of the music and life that Terry and those of us around him and Pran Nath were experiencing.

Have you played In C? When did you play it for the first time?

I directed a group raga vocal ensemble as part of the Composer’s Collaborative extended street performance of In C for the Make Music New York Festival in June of 2007. My current vocal guru Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan, who Terry has also studied with, joined us and it was an exhilarating experience. Because of my experience working with vocalists for In C, David Harrington asked me to work with Francisco Nunes and the Young Peoples Chorus of New York in preparation for this concert, and it also led the way to inviting Mashkoor Khan to participate.

How has In C influenced you as a musician/composer?

I was profoundly influenced by both the music and my relationships with Terry, La Monte Young as well as an immersion in Indian classical music. All of this opened many doors for composing and improvising pattern based and modal music, as well as working in just intonation. In C was one of many facets of this overall experience. It continues to be an inspiration how this simple revolutionary concept had such a profound effect and influence on the world of classical music.

How has music changed since In C first premiered in 1964?

Quite simply it launched the most important new direction in music of the last 50 years. Steve Reich just won the Pulitzer Prize in composition yesterday (he should have gotten it 30 years ago), and now Carnegie is presenting In C. It takes the establishment a few decades to catch up with the pulse of the moment, but it eventually does. I always felt that some of Terry’s works for Kronos like Sun Rings and Salome Dances for Peace deserved to win a major prize like this. Let’s hope that Terry is next.

Tell me about the instrument(s) you'll be playing.

Although I am primarily a composer & pianist, I will be singing next to Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan who has the most amazing vocal and musical abilities, however as an Indian classical musician he doesn’t read Western notation.

Is there anyone performing that you've worked with before? Anyone you're looking forward to meeting for the first time?

Terry is my musical uncle, besides traveling and singing in India together many times, Terry composed “Royal Wedding” from The Cusp of Magic for our wedding and he played the original version on the pipe organ at the Cathedral where Marina and I got married. He was also my best man (you can’t find a better one!) I’m performing in the Mile High Voltage Festival at the Newman Center in Denver next February and we are doing a version of In C there, which will also include So Percussion, and Evan Ziporyn. Margaret Leng Tan and Alfred Shabda Owens are both dear friends, and over the years I have had the acquaintance of performing on the same festival as many of the performers on this program. I am looking forward to meeting Osvaldo Golijov whose music I like very much.

Learn more about Michael Harrison here, and learn more about the April 24 Carnegie Hall performance here.

In C interviews - more So Percussion! This one's with Josh Quillen.

When was the first time you heard Terry Riley's In C? What was that experience like?

I think the first I heard it was in a music history course in my undergrad. It was a great feeling as an undergrad that great pieces did have to follow rules that other great pieces followed. It was such a unique idea, and it really opened my mind.

Have you played In C? When did you play it for the first time?

This will be my first time in an official show, but I have read through it several times in other situations.

How has In C influenced you as a musician/composer?

As I stated earlier, it just opened my mind to think of unique ways to get an idea or musical concept on the page so that it will last and can be recreated in a unique way each time while still adhering to the original core concept.

How has music changed since In C first premiered in 1964?

Society's acceptance of what is "music" has changed and opened so much. So much stuff that would have been on the fringe in 1964 has really had a chance to become mainstream thanks to the internet. I can imagine that the crowd for this show will be really diverse, which is a great thing.

Tell me about the instrument(s) you'll be playing.

We'll be playing a whole variety of items...ie. pitched metal pipes, steel drums, vibrahpones, marimbas, drums, toys, etc. Anything we can find that will add a unique sound to the mix is what we are looking for.

Is there anyone performing that you've worked with before? Anyone you're looking forward to meeting for the first time?

We have worked with Dave Douglas, the GVSU New Music Ensemble, Francisco Nunez, Evan Ziporyn. I am looking forward to meeting everyone involved. It is really such an honor to even be asked to be on stage with this crowd. Kind of surreal.

Learn more about So Percussion here, and purchase tickets to the April 24 Carnegie Hall performance here.

In C Interviews: Alfred Owens.

When was the first time you heard Terry Riley's In C? What was that experience like?

I'm lucky in that my very first experience the piece was performing it with Terry Riley. It wasn't until later that I had a chance to actually listen to a recording and appreciate how the piece weaves together and how intricately the music evolves over the course of a performance. The experiences of performing and listening were, of course, very different, each had it's own revelation.

Have you played In C? When did you play it for the first time?

Over the years I've travelled a lot with Terry RIley doing just intonation piano tuning for his concert tours. On one tour, sometime in the late 80's, there was a BBC documentary being made on California composers, and it had been arranged that a performance of In C would be filmed in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine with the Steve Reich ensemble, Pauline Oliveras and some others. Terry was going to sing and he graciously invited me to perform too.

How has In C influenced you as a musician/composer?

In C makes an indelible impression. I think it led me to focus on the world inside a phrase of music and what it can give you. Compositionally, In C inspires me to think out of the linear box when composing, work with an ensemble in different ways, allow for surprises, and some fun.

How has music changed since In C first premiered in 1964?

That's a big question. Not sure I have the historical perspective for that one. I know the piece has an undeniably strong spirit and presence. I'm aware that the repetition of melodic phrase found it's way into every musical genre. I suppose that composers hadn't really considered
it very much before as a compositional palette.

Tell me about the instrument(s) you'll be playing.

I'm one of the vocalists. Terry has created new lyics for the entire piece which give a lot of definition to the repeating modules. Vocally it's a challenging piece, and staying with some of the repeating modules takes a lot of focus, I've found that pacing is really important.

Is there anyone performing that you've worked with before? Anyone you're looking forward to meeting for the first time?

I've worked with Terry Riley many times over the years, and performed In C with the Kronos Quartet for the 25th anniversary concert and recording back in 1990. I have a long association with Michael Harrison and know some of the other folks performing this time. I'm looking forward to meeting lots of the folks that will be there.

Learn more about Alfred Shabda Owens here, and purchase tickets to the April 24 Carnegie Hall performance here.

In C Interviews: Adam Sliwinski of So Percussion

When was the first time you heard Terry Riley's In C? What was that experience like?

My first exposure to In C was in a music history class in college. To be honest, the piece had already had so much influence by that time (1997) that I remember feeling like I had other musical experiences to relate it to already. What impressed me was that it was so prophetic of what was to come in Pop, Rock, and Contemporary Music.

Have you played In C? When did you play it for the first time?

I played it for the first time at Bill Ryan's "Open Ears" festival out at Suffolk Community College.

How has In C influenced you as a musician/composer?

I've been obsessed lately by what it means to make "American" music. In some ways, this is an outdated obsession, because national boundaries are becoming less and less important to music-making. I keep returning to the idea that what matters most is acceptance of plurality, a reflection of our conflicted mish-mash colonial history.

Riley is one of those composers (like Ives, Cowell, Cage, Reich, etc.) who acknowledged that they were not living in pre-war Vienna or post-war Paris, and who really responded to the world they were inhabiting. In C is a profound affirmation, although with a light touch.

So I suppose the greatest influence comes from having a courageous precedent.

How has music changed since In C first premiered in 1964?

Since I was born in 1979, I think my perspective is limited! I does seem that the various genre-ghettos in music have been breaking down for awhile.

Tell me about the instrument(s) you'll be playing.

The four members of So Percussion will be playing a combination of mallet instruments, found sounds, and even some drums, I think. We're still working on it.

Is there anyone performing that you've worked with before? Anyone you're looking forward to meeting for the first time?

We have worked with a few of the participants before: Dave Douglas, the Grand Valley State students, Mark Stewart, and Evan Ziporyn. Some others we have hung out with, and some we've never met. Sharing the stage with Kronos, Philip Glass, Morton Subotnick, Joan La Barbara, and so many others is an incredible honor. I'm sure we will be pretty star-struck.

Learn more about So Percussion here, and purchase tickets to the April 24 Carnegie Hall performance here.

This morning's In C interview: the members of Koto Vortex.

When was the first time you heard Terry Riley's In C? What was that experience like?

It was around 1990 when I graduated from a college where I majored Japanese traditional music, and started to become interested in the contemporary music. I was very intrigued by In C as if I were seeing the visual images and felt it quite new and fun to me. I had never imagined that I would play this tune with koto! (Nishi)

Have you played In C? When did you play it for the first time?

Both Nishi and Maruta played In just C - Just intonation version - with the Just Strings led by John Schneider in 1995 at the “Inter Link” contemporary music festival – curated and directed by Japanese composer, Mamoru Fujieda. After that, Koto Vortex played In C in the concert for the first time as a quartet. In 1999, Nishi and Maruta performed with Terry Riley for In C under the program of “A Renaissance of Harmony” at the International Arts Festival in Kanagawa directed by Mamoru Fujieda.

How has In C influenced you as a musician/composer?

I have never felt it boring to repeat the pattern. I found it rather beautiful and interesting to see slight changes created by the performance. I also felt that In C and Japanese music have the similar characteristics. In listening the tune, I felt it as if I were watching natural scenery and also felt it free and lively and I was a part of it. (Nishi)

I came to know In C for the first time in 1995 when I played In just C.
I strongly remember how the music was resonated and the rhythm was tangled and layered. I felt it very comfortable to be there listening sounds and me responding to it. (Maruta)

How has music changed since In C first premiered in 1964?

I don’t know how to answer. Members of Koto Votex were born around 1964 so we don’t live long enough to witness the entire history of In C (laugh)

Tell me about the instrument(s) you'll be playing.

The koto was introduced to Japan from China approximately 1400 years ago or in the 7th century. The form of instrument has not changed much since then. The body is made of paulownia and sounds are produced by plucking 13 strings with three finger picks (on thumb, index and middle finger) Players use left hand to push, pull or scratch the strings to give variety to sounds (We call it to color sounds) Pitches can be changed to place and move bridges in between strings. Koto is a manual oriented instrument and therefore its function may be restricted, but many say that it rather creates the liberty on the ability of the instrument.

Is there anyone performing that you've worked with before?

Terry Riley (Nishi and Maruta)

Anyone you're looking forward to meeting for the first time?

We look forward to performing with everyone joining in the performance on 24th!

Buy tickets to today's Carnegie Hall performance here.

In C interviews! Next, Jeanne Velonis

When was the first time you heard Terry Riley's In C? When did you play it for the first time?

The first time I heard it was the first time I played it. I gave an In C party for a friend of mine, who had been telling everyone what a great piece it was and how we all ought to get together to play it. She was right! We played through it, and enjoyed the experience so much that we proceeded to play it a second time, faster. I think we had two electric pianos, a singer, flute, violin, viola, at least one clarinet, Orff marimba, and accordion (of course).

How has music changed since In C first premiered in 1964?

I don't know exactly, but I think the world is a bit more beautiful for the piece...I think it is wonderful that this piece can be played in my living room and on the stage of Carnegie Hall, in a public square in NYC, etc., by any number of people with any combination of instruments, at a wide range of tempi, with magic generated each and every time.

Tell me about the instrument(s) you'll be playing.

I'll be playing the accordion. Mine is a fairly standard Italian-made piano accordion. Its black keys are rather strangely spaced, so I have shall we say visually enhanced a few of them. Accordions have been adopted as folk instruments by an amazingly diverse number of cultures worldwide, meaning there must be accordion jokes in hundreds of languages.

Is there anyone performing that you've worked with before? Anyone you're looking forward to meeting for the first time?

Ha, ha, ha. I have worked on quite a number of Kronos recordings, to begin with. I'm quite dazed when I think of the people I will be sharing the stage with. I have never performed with any of them before. I am looking forward to meeting the Wizard himself.

Purchase tickets to the April 24 Carnegie Hall performance here.