A Rejuvenated Kronos Quartet Returns to the NPR Tiny Desk With Urgency and Wit

Kronos Quartet returned to the NPR Tiny Desk twelve years after their first visit, and three of the four members are new faces. Violinists Gabriela Diaz, violist Ayane Kozasa and cellist Paul Wiancko have joined founder and violinist David Harrington, and the result is a quartet that sounds energized and loose, more fun than ever according to the people in that room. The four-song set moves between whimsy and weight with the kind of range that has defined Kronos across more than 50 years and 1,200 commissions. Paul Wiancko’s new arrangement of Neil Young’s “Ohio” hits with jolts of defiance that land as hard today as the song ever has. Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” which Harrington calls “the centerpiece of American music,” unfolds through a melodramatic introduction before settling into languid despondency. Canadian composer Nicole LizĂ©e’s “Another Living Soul” brings whirly tubes, groan tubes, bells and vocalizing into the mix, while Indonesian composer Peni Candra Rini’s “Hujan” closes the set with a relaxed groove carrying a lament for climate change underneath.