California’s Santa Rosa Symphony has announced details of a benefit concert set to take place on October 23 in northern Sonoma County. At the concert, which will benefit the orchestra’s artistic and educational programs, the Kronos Quartet will perform the world premiere of Purnati, a 45-minute-long collaborative work by the quartet and Javanese ethnomusicologist and musician Rahayu Supanggah, who will perform with the quartet on the gendér, an instrument normally played in gamelan ensembles. The work was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by Judithe Bizot, Steve and Nancy Oliver & Oliver Ranch, The Bali Purnati Center for the Arts, and the Asian Cultural Council, a nonprofit organization based in Manhattan. The concert will take place in the Ann Hamilton-designed tower at the 90-acre Oliver Ranch in Geyserville, California; Steven Oliver, an arts patron and collector who is a former chairman of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art board, will host the event. For the performance of Purnati, the audience will sit or stand on a spiral staircase that extends to the top of the 80-foot Hamilton tower.
Posted August 21, 2009
