Institute History
Description
A Thousand Thoughts will tell the story of legendary classical group, the Kronos Quartet. Founded in 1973, the Kronos Quartet has been called “the most famous ‘new music’ group in the world.” Over the past four decades the group has sold more than a million records, won a Grammy, played thousands of concerts, and profoundly transformed how we think about music, radically opening up the classical world to diverse voices. But rather than being a traditional music documentary, this film will be a live cinematic collaboration between myself and Kronos— continuing my exploration of a form I call “live documentary.” I will narrate A Thousand Thoughts from the stage and cue photos and archival images up on the screen, while Kronos Quartet will play a live score at each screening. At its heart, A Thousand Thoughts will be a meditation on music itself—the act of listening closely to music, the experience of feeling music deeply, and the power music has to change the world. The film will feature interviews with the quartet-members themselves as well as collaborators such as Phillip Glass, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Tanya Tagaq, and others. A Thousand Thoughts is being commissioned by UCLA, the Barbican,the Wexner Center, NYU Abu Dhabi, and the Krannert Center.