Kronos Quartet playing the Dakota this week to record first-ever live album

📰 MinnPost 🕐 June 16, 2026 at 3:00 AM

For decades, the trailblazing Kronos Quartet has reinvented classical music, exploring its edges in an increasingly digital world. This week, the Grammy Award-winning string ensemble will take the stage at Minneapolis’ Dakota Jazz Club to capture their first full-length live album recording.

Kronos is no stranger to the Twin Cities, having performed at the Fitzgerald, the Walker Art Center, Northrop, Ted Mann Concert Hall and the Landmark Center. Recently, David Harrington, the group’s artistic director and sole remaining founding member, has been itching to get back. 

“There are moments in the last few years when I wanted to go and play on the streets in Minneapolis,” he said in an interview.

From 2021: Kronos Quartet performs at the Walker Art Center

Harrington, a violinist, will be onstage with fellow violinist Gabriela Díaz, violist Ayane Kozasa and cellist Paul Wiancko. While various tracks across Kronos’ 70-plus recordings have been captured live, the group has never released a complete live album. 

“There’s something that happens in front of an audience with everybody concentrating together,” Harrington said, adding that “we’d like our audience out there to hear that.”

Among his favorite live recordings is a performance by composer and pianist Béla Bartók and violinist Joseph Szigeti, who recorded together at the Library of Congress in 1940, soon after Bartók escaped Hungary during World War II. Another is gospel singer Mahalia Jackson’s performance at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which Harrington discovered after watching the Questlove documentary “Summer of Soul.” 

For Kronos’ recent album with Smithsonian Folkways, called “Glorious Mahalia,” the group layered archival recordings of Jackson’s voice, including a 1957 Chicago performance and a 1963 interview with Studs Terkel. 

The album also weaves in an interview with Clarence B. Jones, speechwriter, attorney and friend to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He helped to develop King’s speech for the 1963 March on Washington. But during the delivery, Jones said, King veered from his prepared remarks when Jackson, who was sitting behind King on the podium, called out, “Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin!”

“What I learned from hearing Clarence Jones tell that story on TV was something about what a musician’s responsibility is,” Harrington said. “We need to listen to our friends, our families, and our society, and then we report what we hear. That’s what Mahalia Jackson did in that one sentence. And to me, that is a huge moment of inspiration.”

Reflecting on American history has been a major focus for Kronos, particularly leading up to the nation’s July 4 semiquincentennial. Recently, the Kronos Quartet premiered a new multimedia project, “Three Bones,” exploring the perspectives and contributions of Native American, Gullah and Chinese communities.

The first part of the triptych contains an arrangement of “Rumble,” a 1958 instrumental by Link Wray and his Ray Men, banned in some radio markets because its title suggested street fights. Kronos’ version, arranged by Jacob Garchik, will be a part of their show at the Dakota, alongside other works that “have a role in American music and culture,” Harrington said, including John Coltrane’s “Alabama” and Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.”

Related: Encore! Minnesotans find joy in learning music as adults

They’ll also be premiering a work by Minneapolis’ Joe Rainey, a powwow singer and member of the Red Lake Nation, and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Broder. The pair collaborated on the 2022 album “Niineta,” weaving Rainey’s recordings with Broder’s electronic beats.

Rainey and Broder’s collaboration with Kronos came together over a conversation about “the state of the country and the environment in Minneapolis,” Harrington said. “I said, ‘I want a piece of music that the six of us can do.’”

The result, which will be performed live at the Dakota, is more than a response to recent events, Harrington said. It’s “something that’s going to lift us.”

Performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 18, and Friday, June 19, at the Dakota Jazz Club, 1010 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis ($61-$90). More information here. 

The post Kronos Quartet playing the Dakota this week to record first-ever live album appeared first on MinnPost.

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Kronos Quartet playing the Dakota this week to record first-ever live album

📰 MinnPost 🕐 June 16, 2026 at 3:00 AM

For decades, the trailblazing Kronos Quartet has reinvented classical music, exploring its edges in an increasingly digital world. This week, the Grammy Award-winning string ensemble will take the stage at Minneapolis’ Dakota Jazz Club to capture their first full-length live album recording.

Kronos is no stranger to the Twin Cities, having performed at the Fitzgerald, the Walker Art Center, Northrop, Ted Mann Concert Hall and the Landmark Center. Recently, David Harrington, the group’s artistic director and sole remaining founding member, has been itching to get back. 

“There are moments in the last few years when I wanted to go and play on the streets in Minneapolis,” he said in an interview.

From 2021: Kronos Quartet performs at the Walker Art Center

Harrington, a violinist, will be onstage with fellow violinist Gabriela Díaz, violist Ayane Kozasa and cellist Paul Wiancko. While various tracks across Kronos’ 70-plus recordings have been captured live, the group has never released a complete live album. 

“There’s something that happens in front of an audience with everybody concentrating together,” Harrington said, adding that “we’d like our audience out there to hear that.”

Among his favorite live recordings is a performance by composer and pianist Béla Bartók and violinist Joseph Szigeti, who recorded together at the Library of Congress in 1940, soon after Bartók escaped Hungary during World War II. Another is gospel singer Mahalia Jackson’s performance at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which Harrington discovered after watching the Questlove documentary “Summer of Soul.” 

For Kronos’ recent album with Smithsonian Folkways, called “Glorious Mahalia,” the group layered archival recordings of Jackson’s voice, including a 1957 Chicago performance and a 1963 interview with Studs Terkel. 

The album also weaves in an interview with Clarence B. Jones, speechwriter, attorney and friend to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He helped to develop King’s speech for the 1963 March on Washington. But during the delivery, Jones said, King veered from his prepared remarks when Jackson, who was sitting behind King on the podium, called out, “Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin!”

“What I learned from hearing Clarence Jones tell that story on TV was something about what a musician’s responsibility is,” Harrington said. “We need to listen to our friends, our families, and our society, and then we report what we hear. That’s what Mahalia Jackson did in that one sentence. And to me, that is a huge moment of inspiration.”

Reflecting on American history has been a major focus for Kronos, particularly leading up to the nation’s July 4 semiquincentennial. Recently, the Kronos Quartet premiered a new multimedia project, “Three Bones,” exploring the perspectives and contributions of Native American, Gullah and Chinese communities.

The first part of the triptych contains an arrangement of “Rumble,” a 1958 instrumental by Link Wray and his Ray Men, banned in some radio markets because its title suggested street fights. Kronos’ version, arranged by Jacob Garchik, will be a part of their show at the Dakota, alongside other works that “have a role in American music and culture,” Harrington said, including John Coltrane’s “Alabama” and Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.”

Related: Encore! Minnesotans find joy in learning music as adults

They’ll also be premiering a work by Minneapolis’ Joe Rainey, a powwow singer and member of the Red Lake Nation, and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Broder. The pair collaborated on the 2022 album “Niineta,” weaving Rainey’s recordings with Broder’s electronic beats.

Rainey and Broder’s collaboration with Kronos came together over a conversation about “the state of the country and the environment in Minneapolis,” Harrington said. “I said, ‘I want a piece of music that the six of us can do.’”

The result, which will be performed live at the Dakota, is more than a response to recent events, Harrington said. It’s “something that’s going to lift us.”

Performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 18, and Friday, June 19, at the Dakota Jazz Club, 1010 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis ($61-$90). More information here. 

The post Kronos Quartet playing the Dakota this week to record first-ever live album appeared first on MinnPost.

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