Review by Lisa Lanzi
We are fortunate here in Adelaide to have UKARIA Cultural Centre as a purpose-built chamber music venue and each year they partner with Adelaide Festival to present jaw-droppingly fine concert series. 2025 is no exception, and particularly exciting for this reviewer as I am a dedicated fan of Kronos Quartet and a great admirer of founder, artistic director and lead violin David Harrington. I attended Dream Collectors, the final concert in this series which featured all the Australian and international musicians who flew in for this cherished three day event.
Born in1949 David Harrington remains engaged, curious, and passionate about music. He has been heard to say “music should seem to fall effortlessly from the sky” but obviously, a brilliant crew of tech talent has also contributed to the success of Horizons. To begin the program, Harrington presented a truncated version of one of his ‘listening parties’, a friendly, generous chat about musical inspiration and a life-long pursuit of excellence. A few anecdotes were thrown into the mix about his long-standing teacher Veda Reynolds who took a unique and very intuitive approach with each of her students. He also played snippets of certain ‘milestone’ pieces that left a lasting, career-altering impression upon him. Artists and sounds mentioned, and played, included Zabelle Panosian and her song Groung, Dr N Rajam’s Dadra in Raga Bhairavi, an Aka pygmy funeral ritual song, and Taraf de Haïdouks founder Nicolae ‘Culai’ Neacșu’s initially alarming violin friction tone in Ballad of a Dictator which is apparently devilishly difficult to reproduce.
Terry Riley’s Lunch in Chinatown followed, played by the Affinity Quartet: Shane ChenViolin, Nicholas Waters Violin, Josef Hanna Viola, and Mee Na Lojewski Cello. This piece starts with the musicians ‘warming up’ and chatting about hunger and … lunch. As the conversation continued, the violin took the lead motif while the other instruments sounded with pizzicato and sautillé techniques until a more melodic section came through, still with the musicians inserting voiced text here and there. A light-hearted and beautifully executed work.
Melbourne-based Affinity Quartet returned to play with Fodé Lassana Diabaté on his composition Sunjata’s Time [further selections]. This work featuring Diabaté on the balafon - a West African xylophone-like instrument - was transcribed and arranged for string quartet by Jacob Garchik for Fifty for the Future - one of Kronos Quartet’s amazing philanthropic educational projects. The work unfolds in a number of sections each led musically by viola, violin, then cello through recurring motifs over pizzicato phrases and pairing with sonic deliciousness alongside the balafon notes.
To finish, the entire ensemble of 15 guest musicians combined for a joyous rendering of Terry Riley’s Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector, conducted by Harrington. They included Affinity Quartet, Trio Da Kali from Mali (Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté - Voice, Fodé Lassana Diabaté - Balafon, Mamadou Kouyaté - Bass ngoni), Australian String Quartet (Dale Barltrop Violin, Francesca Hiew Violin, Christopher Cartlidge Viola, Michael Dahlenburg Cello), Peni Candra Rini (Voice, Gamelan), Van-Anh Vo (Voice, Dan Bau, Dan Tranh), Garth Knox (Viola, Viola d’amore), and Chloë Sobek with her custom-built Violone (a six-stringed baroque double bass).
Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector, composed for the Kronos in 1980, featured many crescendo and decrescendo passages as colourfully directed by Harrington, and like any jazz improv band, each musician was invited to feature in turn. The piece is based on improvisation layered over fragments of melody, rhythmic patterning and Riley’s dedication to repetition and modal scales. Again, joy was the unifier and the entire venue vibrated with the power of this work. It seemed the audience was part of the band, such was the sea of nodding, tapping of feet, and ‘seat-bopping’.
Harrington and Kronos have visited Adelaide many times in the past, to my great delight, and this series was a gathering of music and culture curated by a legend and visionary. He also related that the seeds of connection were palpable during the event and it is likely that more of these phenomenal musicians will collaborate in future. For David Harrington “… all music is fundamentally connected: it’s simply a case of discovering the shared roots that lie beneath.”
