Kronos Festival 2025: “Good Medicine” in SF (Night 1)

In 2025, the Kronos Festival will bring a weekend-long dose of Good Medicine in a wide range of musical innovation and commentary. Join us for Kronos Festival 2025, whether you’re a longtime fan or new to the magic of Kronos Quartet.

For 50 years, San Francisco’s grammy-winning Kronos Quartet has reimagined and redefined the string quartet experience. This year’s annual festival is themed around Terry Riley’s Good Medicine, providing the healing music the world needs.

Kronos Festival 2025
April 25 – 27, 2025
SFJAZZ Center, 201 Franklin St., SF
Get Tickets – $20 | $35 | $45 | $65

Schedule:

• Friday, April 25 | 7:30p | Night 1
• Saturday, April 26 | 7:30p | Night 2 | Kronos Labs – Free
• Sunday, April 27 | 2:00p | Finale

Friday, April 25 | 7:30 Pm | Night 1

Kronos Festival 2025 opens with Terry Riley’s Good Medicine from Salome Dances for Peace, an epic, two-hour-long string quartet. This movement serves as the last selection of the ballet, which tells the story of Salome using her alluring powers to create peace in the world. This important piece was described by Riley as “not. . . just a concert piece but a piece that could be played as a rite.” Following this will be the first world premiere of the evening, Hildur Guðnadóttir’s Folk Faer Andlit, written in response to the mistreatment of refugees in Iceland. This new arrangement of her 2020 release transforms the evocative plainchant sound of the original into haunting, interwoven melodies. Also on the program is the world premiere of Soo Yeon Lyuh’s Sumbisori, which brings the virtuosity of her haegeum playing to the story of a singular, ancient and disappearing way of life on Jeju Island, and Cardinal Directions by Aleksandra Vrebalov, which will mark 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War and feature master Vietnamese instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Võ alongside Kronos. Peni Candra Rini’s timely and elemental Segara Gunung: IV. Hujan, Gabriella Smith’s uplifting Keep Going, and A Shout, a traditional arrangement by Jacob Garchik, will complete the program.

Saturday, April 26 | 7:30 Pm | Night 2

Program #2 of Kronos Festival showcases two West Coast premieres: inti figgis-vizueta’s Clay Songs, a work inspired by Pre-Columbian sounding objects and the interplay of past and present voices, and Benedicte Maurseth & Kristine Tjøgersen’s Elja, a Hardanger quintet where Kronos, playing new instruments built for them by luthier, Ottar Kaasa, will be joined by Maurseth, also on Hardanger fiddle. Sun Ra’s cosmic Outer Spaceways Incorporated, arranged by Jacob Garchik, will open this program, followed by Viet Cuong’s contemplative Next Week’s Trees. The program continues with Garchik’s arrangement of Nina Simone’s imaginative take on For All We Know, Jonathan Berger’s arrangement of Ya Taali’een ‘ala el-Jabal (inspired by Rim Banna) and Hamza El Din’s reflective Escalay, for which visual storyteller Ariel Aberg-Riger will join Kronos.

Kronos Labs | Free

3:00 pm | Spotlight: Laura Ortman

Laura Ortman discusses the newly reimagined version of Scended Sparks, premiering at Kronos Festival, and the inspirations behind her music. A fearless experimenter working with Apache violin, megaphones, field recordings, and more, Ortman continuously pushes artistic boundaries across mediums. A member of the White Mountain Apache tribe, she also founded the Coast Orchestra in 2008, an all-Native American ensemble that performed a live soundtrack to In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), the first silent feature film to star an all-Native American cast.

5:00 pm | Spotlight: Gabriella Smith

Composer Gabriella Smith shares insights into Keep Going, her work for Kronos Quartet that weaves music with the voices of climate innovators from around the world. She will explore the inspirations behind her music — including ecosystem restoration, songbird research, and natural soundscapes — and how they shape her approach to composition and climate action. Known for her joyful, environmentally-conscious works, Smith invites listeners to engage with the climate movement through creativity, connection, and hope.

Sunday, April 27 | 2:00 Pm | Finale

Program #3 closes Kronos Festival with two captivating premieres that will feature the composers themselves alongside Kronos. Vocalist and composer Tsering Wangmo Satho, joined by the San Francisco Girls Chorus under the direction of Valérie Sainte-Agathe, will present the world premiere of Satho’s new work, which explores the dynamic storytelling inherent to Tibetan opera songs. Multi-instrumentalist and composer Laura Ortman will join Kronos for the world premiere of a new version of her work, Scended Sparks. Drawing on her White Mountain Apache heritage, Ortman’s voice and words intertwine with her classical and Apache violins to evoke vivid landscapes, blending the sounds of nature with dynamic storytelling. The program also includes Nicole Lizée’s haunting and experimental Death to Kosmische, Mary Kouyoumdjian’s unflinching Bombs of Beirut — available now on WITNESS, her and Kronos’ recent album — and Zachary James Watkins’s resonant Peace Be Till.

Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK, a free, GPS-enabled work of public art in Golden Gate Park that launched in 2021 as part of Kronos Festival, will also be ongoing at Golden Gate Park.

 

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