In this episode of Air Time from UCSB Arts & Lectures, host Charles Donelan sits down with the members of Kronos Quartet — David Harrington, Gabriela Díaz, Ayane Kozasa, and Paul Wiancko — on the eve of their Santa Barbara performance of Three Bones, taking place Saturday, May 2, at 6 p.m. at UCSB Campbell Hall.
Structured as a triptych, Three Bones explores the histories and cultural contributions of Indigenous Americans, the Gullah Geechee people of the South Carolina Sea Islands, and Chinese Americans, weaving together newly commissioned music, archival recordings, filmed elements, and live collaboration. The quartet discusses the origin of the project’s evocative title, its connection to the United States’s 250th anniversary, and the extensive research and artistic partnerships that shape the work — including appearances by pipa virtuoso Wu Man, percussionist Quentin Baxter, and Apache violinist Laura Ortman.
The conversation ranges widely, from early wax cylinder recordings preserved at UCSB to the survival of a Mende funeral song across generations, and from landmark legal cases to the role of deep, cultural, historical listening as a guiding principle in Kronos’s work. Along the way, the ensemble reflects on the emotional and intellectual stakes of Three Bones, describing it as both a culmination of decades of boundary-expanding performance and a call to reimagine what a concert experience can hold.
This episode offers a compelling entry point into a project that is at once musical, historical, and urgently contemporary. Three Bones is an exploration of memory, identity and the power of sound to carry stories across time.
Charles Donelan
Welcome everyone to Air Time, the podcast of UCSB Arts & Lectures. My guests today are the members of Kronos Quartet. They will be here in Santa Barbara on Saturday, May 2, at 6 p.m. at UCSB Campbell Hall for a very special program called Three Bones. We’re excited about this. It’s a co-commission that will premiere at Carnegie Hall and then come to Santa Barbara. I believe that’s the second stop in touring this particular production.
The members of the Kronos Quartet are David Harrington, violin; Gabriela Díaz, violin; Ayane Kozasa, viola; and Paul Wiancko, cello. Welcome David, Gabriela, Ayane, and Paul, thank you very much. I’ve loved Kronos for decades and enjoyed your performances in Santa Barbara in the past. I know, David, we had a very important concert, because I think it was one of the very last concerts with the group as of the previous lineup. But this concert is special in a variety of different ways. Maybe someone could get us started by talking about, What are the three bones of the title? Because that’s a little bit enigmatic until you understand what it refers to.
David Harrington
Well, the three bones have to do with the bones that allow us to hear sounds. And that title was the result of a conversation with Nikki Finney, the wonderful poet from South Carolina, and we had just performed with her, and Nikki and I were having a cup of tea, and I, at that moment, we did not have a title for this triptych we were planning. I tried to explain it to her, and part of the explanation had to do with trying to listen to our country and what was going on, what has gone on, and trying to listen into the depths of things a little bit. And I said, “Nikki, I need a title. What comes to mind?” And she thought about it for 30 seconds, and then she said, “Three bones, you know, the bones that allow us to hear?” And I said, “Nikki, I think we have a title. Thank you very much.” She said, “My pleasure.”
Charles Donelan
I love it because you don’t know what it is until you do. But it’s also so fully grounded in what I think of as being the ethos of Kronos and of all of you individually as musicians, which is that you have big ears, to borrow that phrase, and that you are listeners first, and listeners not just to music, but to life and culture. The piece is also divided into three parts. It’s not a conventional concert format, and maybe Gabriela. Could you tell us what the three parts are and, and we’ll just start there.
Gabriela Díaz
Yeah, so Three Bones is divided into sort of like three concerts. There’ll be two intermissions in between, and each section of each bone, or each section of the triptych, is focusing on the culture and music of a certain population of the United States. Often, it’s a culture that has been wronged by the United States. So the first section is called “Ground,” which focuses on Indigenous Americans. The second is called “At the Sea Islands,” and that focuses on the Gullah Geechee people of the South Carolina Sea Islands. And then the third section is “Beyond the Golden Gate,” which focuses on Chinese Americans.
Charles Donelan
And another piece of the context that I think, I hope, will kind of complete this initial scene setting for this conversation is that this piece was commissioned in part as response to 2026 being the 250th anniversary of some idea of these United States. Maybe Ayane, could you say something to that? How did that conversation start that you would be participating in this? Was it with Carnegie Hall? Where did the 250th business enter into things?
Ayane Kosaza
I think this started before Gabriela and I joined; okay, like in a conversation with David and Carnegie, when Carnegie first approached Kronos to say we want you to be a part of our series of concerts that discuss the 250th anniversary of this nation, and I think that’s when David had this idea to highlight these three groups and show how integral they are to the way that this country has developed, and how it is really important to know about not just their culture, but also a lot of these legal cases that happened for them to fight for their their culture and their life. And so the concert, these three concerts that we’re playing, not only has just music that is written by Gullah descendants or indigenous people or Chinese Americans. But it also talks about some of these stories that happened, some in the past, where people fought, and to make sure that their voices were heard.
Charles Donelan
Now, Paul, you know, when you were here last season with owls, it was an unusuall format in terms of the instrumentation, right? You’re pulling in this other cello, stripping out one of the violins. With Kronos, there’s always all these other elements. There’s so much in this piece, as I understand it, just from reading the program description, not just video, not just recitation, but also, there’s archival materials, wax cylinders, even, is that correct?
Paul Wiancko
Yes, that is correct for Three Bones. I think Kronos is really pulling out all the stops and relying on all of our friends and collaborators and, you know, everyone we can think of who cares about the things that we care about. So we’re working not only with Scott Fraser and Brian Scott, our sound and lighting designer for this. It’s a collaboration with XUAN, who is a filmmaker. She has created literally hours of video art, and she’s compiled archival footage and recordings and interviews, and is an artist herself, and is incorporating her own craft into the visuals of Three Bones, and so we’re hoping it will be something that will engage people’s senses to the extreme. And the music also reflects that it’s a combination of music that has been an integral part of of Kronos’s trajectory over these decades, there will be newly commissioned work in each third of this triptych. Each bone has a sort of seed commissioned work that is the centerpiece of that bone. And those are brand new commissioned works, and those will all involve a collaborator who will join us on stage and help us premiere this.
Charles Donelan
Somewhere in this building where I’m seated right now, there is a very important, apparently, I’m told, collection of wax cylinders that are being kept by the UCSB library. And I love that stuff. I find it fascinating. And now I want to go back to David, and I’m going to ask David, what does it do? You’ve had so much experience with this, but what does it do when you incorporate recordings, recitation, different kinds of archival sounds into a live music setting? With your experience with that, what do you think about it from a musician’s point of view,
David Harrington
For me, what we get as listeners when we bring early recordings into our concerts, is we get a fuller sense of time. And you know, you mentioned the library of cylinder recordings at UC Santa Barbara. That library is where the first recordings ever made by Chinese people in the U.S. live.
Charles Donelan
Oh, that’s fantastic.
David Harrington
Many years ago, I got to hear the first Chinese music recorded in the United States, and I remember playing them for Wu Man, right near the first time that we ever met. And I played these recordings, and I said, “Someday, we’ve got to figure out a way to do something with these recordings,” because this incredible music was recorded in what has become known as Chinatown in around 1905, or maybe even earlier, I sometimes get these dates mixed up. But when I heard this music first, I thought this is so different than anything I’ve heard before. Now what? What would it have been like to have been a person with a background like mine hearing that music in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century? And I could only think of something like it would have been kind of like being at the premiere of The Rite of Spring or something. It was so different from anything I’d ever heard before. And it turns out, it was Cantonese opera that was being sung here in San Francisco’s Chinatown. And today it still sounds incredibly new to me, and fun and challenging, and the sound is really interesting, and plus, you get that kind of crackly early Edison cylinder sound, and that has become one of the characters in Three Bones.
Charles Donelan
And let’s go with this and pursue the angle of the collaborators. Wu Man, who we know well here at UCSB Arts & Lectures — she’s performed here many times, in various different ensembles, and one of them quite recently: a really amazing trio, probably two years ago. She is participating in the third section, which is the one called “Beyond the Golden Gate.” I’m going to let who would like to address the “Beyond the Golden Gate” piece. Does somebody have some observations about what it’s like to work with her and with the other folks, because she’s not the only other well, it looks like she is the only other live guest, but we’ve also got the recorded voice of David Lee and the traditional music from the wax cylinder recording to anybody want to tell me something more about this piece? Obviously, it’s a San Francisco piece in some way.
Gabriela Díaz
So, yeah, Wu Man’s artistry and her personality weaves through the whole of “Beyond the Golden Gate” from early on in the course of that particular section of the concert. She will be playing with us in a piece by Dai Wei, which was the new piece that was written for this bone, which also includes, there are two pieces by Dai Wei on this concert, both phenomenal pieces by her, and the pipa. Wu Man’s pipa playing really is an integral part of that piece. But she will also be playing some sections of Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera. There will also be a moment where Wu Man has the spotlight on her completely, and she’ll play a solo piece. And then we will also end the whole Three Bones with one of Wu Man’s pieces called “Silk and Bamboo,” which is for all five of us.
In addition to Wu Man’s pipa playing, she will also have a lot of other opportunities to play. You mentioned before other instruments that Kronos uses, and we’ll get to use stones and temple bowls and Buddha box and all kinds of other interesting sound found sounds to create the world around “Beyond the Golden Gate.” And you mentioned David Lei, who is just an incredible person and resource, and someone that David has known for a long time. And there will be moments throughout “Beyond the Golden Gate” where David Lei will be explaining these very monumental, groundbreaking cases the Chinese brought against the United States, and just show the incredible resilience of those people in these very trying times that they lived through. But just like always, with hope and using all that they have to to show how important their culture is here in the United States,
Charles Donelan
The middle piece is called “At the Sea Islands.” The special guest is Quentin Baxter, percussionist, but it is quite wide ranging, as far as I can tell. I mean all kinds of things. The Gullah culture is, I believe, at the heart of it. But there’s also a piece by Babatunde Olatunji that’s inspired by Nina Simone. And there’s even something from Glorious Mahalia, which I believe is the title of the album that you just released as well. I have had that on repeat in my house and my car and everywhere I listen to music for the last 10 days or so, and it’s such an extraordinary achievement, I have to remark, as someone who taught the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in a high school classroom for many years, to hear that passage read by, I believe it’s Quentin Jones, is that his name?
David Harrington
His name is Clarence Jones.
Charles Donelan
Okay, yes. Thank you so much. It’s incredible the work that you did. To put that in context: I wish I’d had it when I had to try to teach that work. But, you know, and it contains that extraordinary sentence, you know, where he talks about how “Funtown is closed.” You have to explain that Funtown is closed. Maybe David could tell us a little bit more about collaborating with the various different people who are involved in the middle section, “At the Sea Islands.”
David Harrington
Well, one thing to know is that “At the Sea Islands” features a recording made in 1932 by a Gullah woman that was recorded by Lorenzo Dow Turner. And Turner was the linguist that proved that Gullah was a language, and as part of his research, he recorded many people and some stories and some songs. There was this one song he recorded, and he didn’t recognize the language that was being sung, and the singer didn’t know the language or what the words meant, but she had learned the song from her mother, who had learned the song from her mother, and we don’t know how many generations back that was.
A few years after 1932, a linguist from Sierra Leone visited Lorenzo Dow Turner, and Turner played this recording for him, and immediately the linguist from Sierra Leone said, “Well, that’s the Mende language, and I don’t happen to speak that or understand it very well, but I know that’s the language.” And then a few years later, that recording was taken to Sierra Leone, and after much effort and playing it for many different people, it was learned that the song sung in the Mende language in the United States came from a funeral ceremony that took place in Sierra Leone, and as far as we know, that is the only recorded example of a song that survived the Atlantic slave trade and that arrived in the United States and then survived and was handed down we don’t know how many generations. But anyway, we have this recording, and that formed the basis of our performance “At the Sea Islands.” So it’s like a seed for the whole piece, that this actually proves that culture can survive even in the most extremely difficult circumstances.
Charles Donelan
It’s an extraordinary testament to the network that the Kronos Quartet has both participated in, but also, I think to a large extent, created, that you have people like Charlton Singleton who arranged this Mende Funeral Suite. He was here a couple of years ago with his group as part of the Arts & Lectures season. Just so many amazing people.
I would feel remiss if we did not talk at least a little bit about Laura Ortman, because she’s going to be here. Yes, tell me maybe. Ayane, can you tell me about Laura and about the Apache violin. I don’t know if I’ve heard an Apache violin before.
Ayane Kozasa
Yeah, sure. We just recently premiered Laura’s piece in Tucson, Arizona, and the panel of “Ground” got its kind of first voyage in Tucson, and it was really special. The whole concept of “Ground” takes journeys through Indigenous composers that a lot of them have had really close relationships with Kronos. Actually, all the panels include pieces both that have been written for Kronos and have just been written for this exact moment, for this occasion. But there are a lot of these composers we’re kind of looking back at, the composers that Kronos has worked with and bringing these pieces to the present again, and so there’s a lot of like, intricacies and connections and friendships in that way throughout each section of the concert. “Ground” has music by Raven Chacon, Elisa Harkins, Link Wray, and Charlie Patton, and then the final piece. Is this epic journey that Laura created for us. Laura plays both the Apache violin and an amplified violin, Western western classical violin. The Apache violin is so beautiful; you have to hear it to really understand. But when you hear it up close, it really shakes you, sorry, no pun intended, but like in your bones. There’s a delicacy to the sound that our sound engineer, Scott Fraser, does a really amazing job of picking it up and amplifying it in a bigger Hall. But acoustic wise, it’s this really, if you just hear it acoustically, it’s this really beautiful, delicate and intimate sound. And actually, David has played one before and his Apache violin lives at a museum.
David Harrington
The Instrument Museum in Phoenix, actually. Just to further what Ayane just said, the Apache violin, and our relationship to Laura goes back to 1993 because she was a student in Lawrence, Kansas, and she came to one of our rehearsals. I think she’d read in the newspaper that there was an Apache violin that was part of our concert that night, and she made it to the sound check. And like I’ve said to everybody, anybody that gets into a sound check just figures out a way to get in. I already like them before I meet them, because it’s the kind of stuff I used to do when I was in college. When there was a group that came to town, I would figure out a way to hear them privately. That’s just part of the gig, if you want more information.
Anyway. So I met Laura. She came up to me and she said, “I’m a violinist. I’m from the White Mountain Apache people. Can I play your Apache violin?” And I just handed it to her. She was about 20, I think, at the time, and we’ve remained in contact ever since then, and I’ve just listened to her and noticed that increasingly she became more and more masterful as an artist and as a communicator. And so it just felt like the right time that she would write for us.
And another thing to note about the Apache violin. It’s made out of a cactus, yeah. And it’s a one string generally, a one string instrument. And like Ayane said, it’s very soft, usually, and intimate. And, you know, you just want to get closer to it, and you kind of want to cuddle it, to cuddle a cactus. Cuddle the cactus.
And anyway, as we were kind of moving towards this piece, there was an exhibit at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, and this artist just blew me away. His name was Jeffrey Gibson. And what I loved about Jeffrey’s work, and I’d never encountered it till I went to this museum last summer, was the fact that it’s so colorful, and the closer you get to this work, the more disturbing it is, because within these incredibly beautiful colors there are statements about what it’s like to be Indigenous in our country, Indigenous American, and so what Jeffrey did in visual art is exactly what I was hoping Kronos could do in music.
And so I called up Laura, and I said, “Laura, do you know Jeffrey Gibson’s work?” And she kind of chuckled. She said, “Oh sure, I’ve known Jeffrey for years. We’re doing an opera together.” And I thought, great. Right? “That means you have his phone number, right?” And so anyway, what we now have is a 19-minute incredible video that accompanies Laura’s music made for this piece by Jeffrey Gibson. So I’m really happy about that.
Charles Donelan
So that’s an aspect of the first bone, ”Ground.” A couple of more questions, maybe a couple of fun ones to wind up. And I just want to say something directly to my audience. I hope that it’s acceptable to you folks, but I want to make sure everyone understands this is an incredibly learned group. This is going to be a very educational evening, but these shows, Kronos concerts, I always tell people, “If you like Radiohead or rock shows that are thrilling and multi- dimensional, you have to see the Kronos quartet because they are, in string quartet terms, exploding things in the same sort of way.” Some of the most memorable experiences that I’ve had in a concert hall have been with Kronos, so I expect nothing less from this one, and maybe we can go around and hear from everybody.
You’re doing something that’s kind of beyond a concert, a simple concert. It starts earlier. It’s got three different sections. There’s going to be breaks in between. Could each person tell us briefly, and maybe, even if you can do it in a sentence or two, that would be perfect.
What you’re hoping people get from this that’s that’s more than a concert or different from an ordinary — not that you would ever do something ordinary, but what’s special about this one? Paul, do you want to go first?
Paul Wiancko
Oh my gosh, one sentence.
Charles Donelan
OK, you can have more than one if you want.
Paul Wiancko
I hope that people leave the venue after Three Bones kind of the way that I left my apartment as soon as I got the call inviting me to join the Kronos Quartet, and I got down to the sidewalk, and I looked up at the sky, and just could feel the earth pulsating. Could kind of feel my existence, just in my life, absorb more meaning just with one phone call. I felt like what I was capable of, and the potential that I had to give back to the planet through my craft, through music, through cello, somehow had just magnified by 1,000,000 percent, and it’s since that day, you know, the frame through which I look at humanity, culture, my own life, the issues plaguing the Earth. It just kind of made me a better person.
And I think the Three Bones is that in musical form. David has been changing what chamber music can do for the last 52 years, and this project, in a way, is a culmination of a lot of that work. And I think it’s a gift also. It’s a gift to humanity. It’s a gift to music lovers. It’s a gift to residents and non-residents. And non-residents of this country, however you are choosing to celebrate the U.S. at 250, or not celebrate it, this music is for you, and it represents so much and it questions so much and it draws connections, both conscious and subconscious, that I hope people just step out onto the sidewalk after the show and look up to the sky and think at once, you know, we’re going to be okay. And my god, what is happening? Something needs to be done, and I am happy to be alive. I’m part of the fabric of humanity and of society. And I, too, you know, have a voice. And I guess that was a little more than one sentence.
Charles Donelan
That was one big sentence. Period. So special. I assume that the three others here have experienced Paul’s ability to rise to the occasion in the past, and he has just done so again. That was just fantastic. Thank you! Does anybody else want to go after that? After you got the call, how you felt the earth was throbbing under your feet? I want to feel that way too.
Paul Wiancko
I hadn’t really thought of that moment since then, until now, it was just so beautiful.
Charles Donelan
Yeah, and I love what you did to invoke how we’re all feeling in terms of the historical moment. If there were ever an anniversary for the nation that felt consequential, I would have to say this is one for sure.
David Harrington
It’s interesting at this point that the one of the legal cases that Ayane was mentioning, that David Lei is going to focus on, is the United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the birthright citizenship case that began here in San Francisco. One thing that David Lei has taught all the members of Kronos and our staff is the immense contributions of the Chinese community, and frequently they’ve been hidden, overlooked, buried, sometimes purposely, I believe. But anyway, that’s another story.
But I think one thing I’d love for our audience to feel is, is the sentence “I had no idea.” And maybe it’s time that concerts provide questions and provide maybe attempts, at least directions towards some concrete answers to things. And I think that’s what Three Bones is at least attempting. And you’ve got to start somewhere. In a way it does feel like it’s the result of a lot of years, but it also feels like it’s this chapter heading for Kronos.
Charles Donelan
That’s so great that you bring that up about birthright citizenship because we, many of us, listened on the radio the other day to the magnificent job that the woman who argued the case for the ACLU did in front of the Supreme Court. She was so wonderful.
Gabriela Díaz
I feel like, by being a part of this project and hearing about the incredible amount of thoughtful research that went into this, you know, before Ayane and I joined, and as it was happening, and all of these incredible people who have been working with us to help us create this evening, I feel like there’s a tremendous amount of love that has been put into this project, and a love for all of the musicians that are being represented on this concert, and a love for the music that they’ve written and the stories that they tell. And I feel like that’s what I take away from it. I mean, there’s so much, there’s a lot of difficult material that is broached over the course of the evening, but I think sort of the overarching feeling that I have is that, you know, I’ve learned so much, and I feel so much admiration and love for all of the people that have brought this to life, and I hope that the audience will take that with them also and just feel this sort of like sense of community that is surrounding all of this. Every single piece represents a particular community and love within that community. And that’s such a beautiful thing to experience on stage, and I hope that the audience takes that, yeah. Yes for sure,
Charles Donelan
And that’s a good reminder for our community that this is part of what we’re doing this for. This is part of why we’re putting on Three Bones. It is because we want to encourage that in the hall. Ayane, I want to say, send us off somehow.
Ayane Kozasa
Oh gosh, everybody said such beautiful things. I’m really grateful. I know that the research started before I joined, but this project feels like the first project where all four of us have really contributed a lot to the building of the thing, of this evening presentation, this art and like we’ve all been in it so intricately in the last few months, and I’m really grateful that this was the first project that I got to do with Kronos on that level of intricacy and commitment, because it kind of sets a precedent for everything else we’re going to do next. And then the more we work on it, the more I’ve been kind of like toggling between, of course, being inspired, but also kind of frustrated too. As artists, you shouldn’t do anything less than the things that we’re trying to convey in the realm of this project. It’s like, I can’t afford to play another concert where I’m not thinking this deeply. I need to be thinking this deeply about issues, and I need to be thinking about this deeply, about where this music came from. What am I trying to say? What do I want to leave the audience thinking about with like every program? I hope that I can put this amount of thought and research whoever or whatever we’re trying to amplify; it’s for the greater good of the world. I feel like I just can’t afford to do anything less than that as a musician anymore. And I’m excited that that’s like, the bottom line, and we’re gonna keep going up from here. So yeah, frustrated is not the right word. But I just feel very amped, I guess, yes.
Charles Donelan
Thank you so much for articulating something that I haven’t been able to exactly pinpoint before about Kronos over the years that I’ve experienced, which is that Kronos always has an urgency to it. It has a sense of purpose that is very special. I can’t think of another group that has that same drive towards something more, the thing that we all need to be on it every day in order to be living our best lives. I think that’s very close to how I feel about the group. So wonderful to speak to all of you. Thank you so much. Let me give the sign off here and tell everybody that they should come to UCSB Campbell Hall on Saturday May 2, at 6 p.m. It’s an early start, and we will have the Kronos Quartet with David Harrington, Gabriella Díaz, Ayanna Kozasa, Paul Wiancko, and special guests Laura Ortman, Quentin Baxter, and Wu Man, and the program is in three parts. It’s in Three Bones, and it will be unforgettable. Thank you again, and we look forward to seeing you in a few weeks.
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