Strings Go Into Battle: Kronos Quartet

"The reason we got into playing 'Purple Haze' by Jimi Hendrix in the late '70s," says the Kronos Quartet's David Harrington, "is because people were saying the orchestras in the United States were gonna fold. And I got to thinking: '[Crap], I never played the 'Rite of Spring"!'" Meaning Stravinsky's riot-inducing masterpiece. "So I got a friend to make a version for Kronos. Then I thought, 'What if they want an encore; what are we gonna do?' That's how we got into playing Hendrix."

Makes perfect sense — 30 years later in our genre-blurred iPod world.

"It's an incredible time for music," says Harrington whose quartet plays two shows in College Park this weekend. "It's possible to have access to many corners of the world of music right now." Like Alim Kasimov, from Azerbaijan. Or Toumani Diabate, from Mali. "Damon Albarn's also doing a new piece for us. It feels like there's something that musicians are focusing in a new way."

Consider Aleksandra Vrebalov's piece, "... hold me, neighbor, in this storm ..." Says Harrington, "it tries to explain in musical terms what's happening in her hometown, Belgrade. She called me the morning we premiered the piece: 'Have you seen the paper?'

The photo on the cover of the New York Times was the American Embassy in Belgrade, in flames. For the first time in the history of string quartet music, a piece premiered that dealt with an event on the front page of every paper in the world."

For Thursday's show, it accompanies George Crumb's "Black Angels."

"I've always thought of 'Black Angels' as the string quartet piece that came directly out of the Vietnam War experience." When Harrington first heard its famously shrieky hair-raising opening in 1973, he left "convinced I had to start a group to play that piece." So Kronos was born. The piece, he says, is "just as vivid and useful now as it was then." If by "vivid," Harrington means scarier than most metal. "But, basically, it's quite soft," he objects. "Except for those scary freaky parts."

Sunday's show is titled "Alternative Radio." It features radio provocateur David Barsamian in discussion with Diane Wilson, founder of anti-war pranksters Code Pink. Talk is interwoven with music from around the globe, chosen in real-time response to the conversation.

The show arose after Harrington became a grandfather — at the same time as the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He couldn't reconcile the hope of new birth with his dread about world affairs. "It created a real conflict in me, a depression. I was having trouble finding the value of being a musician — traveling around, playing for a bunch of strangers every night."

But historian — and the first "Alternative Radio" guest — Howard Zinn "convinced me that being a musician was absolutely the most important thing I could do." After all, people do come to listen to Harrington.

"Last time we played the National Gallery in D.C., we did our version of ['The Star Spangled Banner,'] inspired by Hendrix. "I said I wanted to play so damn loud Bush would hear. And I think we almost did it."

» Clarice Smith Center, 193 Stadium Drive, College Park, Md.; Thu., Oct. 30, 8 p.m; Sun., 7:30 p.m.; $40 general public, students $7; 301-405-2787.

Written by Bob Massey for Express
Photo by Zoran Orlic