The

discography Discography is the study and cataloging of published sound recordings, often by specified artists or within identified music genres. The exact information included varies depending on the type and scope of the discography, but a discography entry ...

of the

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...

includes 43 studio albums, two compilations, five soundtracks, and 29 contributions to other artists' records. The Kronos Quartet plays classical, pop, rock, jazz, folk, world and

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included seria ...

(often written especially for them by for instance Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Alexandra Vrebalov, ...) and was founded in 1973 by

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

ist David Harrington. Since 1978, they are based in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Since 1985, the quartet's music has been released on

Nonesuch Records Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group, distributed by Warner Records (formerly called Warner Bros. Records), and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, Non ...

. Early recordings by the quartet contain contemporary classical music and adaptations of more popular music, such as jazz and rock and roll. Since the 1980s, and especially with the release of ''Cadenza on the Night Plain'', written as a collaboration between composer

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...

and the quartet, much of the quartet's repertoire and album releases contain music written especially for them, by composers such as Terry Riley,

Kevin Volans Kevin Volans (born 26 July 1949) is a South African born Irish composer and pianist. He studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel in Cologne in the 1970s and later became associated with the ''Neue Einfacheit'' (New Simplicity) mov ...

Henryk Górecki Henryk Mikołaj Górecki ( , ; 6 December 1933 – 12 November 2010) was a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. According to critic Alex Ross, no recent classical composer has had as much commercial success as Górecki. He became a l ...

, and

Ástor Piazzolla Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla (, ; March 11, 1921 – July 4, 1992) was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. His works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed '' nuevo tango'', incorporating elements fr ...

. Their music "covers a who's who of 20th century-composers", as one critic noted in 1998. Kronos has recorded five

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

s including the 1998 score by

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

for the scoreless (except for Tchaikovsky title music) 1931 sound movie ''

Dracula ''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...

'', and has contributed to the soundtracks of five other movies, including ''

Heat In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is al ...

'' and '' 21 Grams''. Outside the genre of classical music, Kronos has collaborated with a great number of other artists, especially pop artists, such as

Joan Armatrading Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, (, born 9 December 1950) is a Kittitian-English singer-songwriter and guitarist. A three-time Grammy Award nominee, Armatrading has also been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She received ...

Dave Matthews Band Dave Matthews Band (also known by the initials DMB) is an American rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1991. The band's founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer and bac ...

Andy Summers Andrew James Summers (born 31 December 1942), is an English guitarist who was a member of the rock band The Police. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a band member in 2003. Summers has recorded solo albums, collaborated w ...

Nelly Furtado Nelly Kim Furtado (; ; born December 2, 1978) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. Furtado has sold over 40 million records worldwide making her one of the most successful Canadian artists. She first gained fame with her trip hop-inspired deb ...

, and

Nine Inch Nails Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated as NIN and stylized as NIИ, is an American industrial rock band formed in Cleveland in 1988. Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Trent Reznor was the only permanent member of the band ...

. The quartet has achieved considerable commercial and critical success and by 1998 (the year of the quartet's 25th anniversary) had sold more than 1.5 million albums. Many of Kronos' albums have ranked on various ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' charts; the 1992 album ''Pieces of Africa'' reached #1 in the Top World Albums chart. The quartet won a Grammy for the 2003 album ''Lyric Suite''.

Studio albums

Compilation albums

Video albums

Soundtracks

Contributions

References

;General * Catalog information from
Kronos Quartet
at

(retrieved April 21, 2009) for Nonesuch releases and fro
Amazon.com
for others, except where indicated. ;Specific

Published music

Bibliography

* * *Wynn, Ron. "Kronos Quartet", in

External links

Kronos Quartet
on

Kronos Quartet Website
an
discography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kronos Quartet Classical music discographies Discographies of American artists