A crossover between TivoliVredenburg and the Music Meeting Festival, the legendary Kronos Quartet performed seven exhilarating pieces including the world premiere of Through Their Eyes by Saskia Venegas Aernouts. The evening was one of warmth and communion, welcoming enthusiastic audiences from the Netherlands and abroad, journeying together through history, spirituality, and activism.
Hailing from San Francisco, the Kronos line-up – David Harrington (violin), Gabriela Díaz (violin), Ayane Kozasa (viola), and Paul Wiancko (cello) – delivered vibrant pieces that combined classical music with unconventional tools and elements. Active for half a century, the ensemble has performed in more than 50 countries, released over 70 albums, and commissioned more than 1,100 new works and arrangements. They continue to expand the classical quartet repertoire through their innovative vision and social engagement, recognised by numerous honours including three Grammy Awards, the Polar Music Prize, the Avery Fisher Prize, and the Edison Classical Oeuvre Prize.
On this night, from tinkling synthesisers to swishing water, the compositions were a feast not only for the ears but also for the eyes, offering a carefully choreographed experience of sublime emotional intensity, eccentric methodologies, and childlike playfulness. Beginning with a saunter through the cosmos of Sun Ra’s Outer Spaceways Incorporated and grounding in the sober confrontation of contemporary realities after the break, history and avant-garde collided through the cross-cultural dialogues of music.
Terry Riley’s Good Medicine led us through a meditative, reconciling ritual, gliding into Soo Yeon Lyuh’s Yessori (Sound from the Past), a vibration between memory and renewal using sounds extended from the centuries-old Korean string instrument, the haegeum. Nicole Lizée’s Death to Kosmische intertwined the electronic timbres of omnichords and stylophones with the spirit of 1970s German Kosmische Musik.
The highlight of the night – Through Their Eyes by Spanish-Belgian composer Saskia Venegas Aernouts – was a four-part reflection on the Spanish Civil War. Also a music theatre maker and violinist, Aernouts’ works are performed across Europe and are often socially engaged. In this piece, she explores how invisible wounds are channelled when grief does not take the form of ritual, leaving only the frayed thread of searching without resolution. The tangled layers of collective burden that cannot be easily named are identified and breathed through her composition. In response, the piece also asks how empathy, humanity, and compassion might aid in healing.
Hildur Guðnadóttir’s Fólk fær andlit was a stirring plea against the deportation of terminally ill children from Iceland, before the evening concluded with Gabriella Smith’s Keep Going. This five-part hymn to climate activism is a collective imagining of a better world, using recordings, voice, natural sounds – signing the night off on a hopeful note.
This musical journey, in search of humanity and constantly reinventing itself in every moment, was supported by the Fonds Podiumkunsten and the Music Meeting Festival, taking place from 7th to 9th June 2025. Rosina Lui 8th May 2025
