Created by two of the country’s most esteemed artists, composer Michael Abels and poet Nikky Finney, and brought to life by the most legendary ensemble in contemporary classical music, the Kronos Quartet, At War With Ourselves - 400 Years of You is a major, evening-length work about the African American experience in the New World. The dramatic piece directly engages with history and explores themes including race relations, social justice and civil rights.
Written for string quartet, narrator, and adult choir, At War With Ourselves has been in development since 2013. It was workshopped over the course of three days and given its first preview performance at the University of South Carolina on November 7, 2021. Related events in Kronos’s and Abels’ residency (see below) at USC, all open to the public, include presentations, discussions and Q&A sessions with the work’s creators and artists, master classes, poetry readings, and a film screening at the Nickelodeon Theatre.
Finney’s evocative poetry, which directly inspired Abels’ music, was written in 2019, the 400th anniversary of the African presence in America. The intimate, emotionally-charged text — in turns both bold and seductive, and always deeply personal — flits throughout history with allusions to slave ships, Harriet Tubman, black astronomer Benjamin Banneker, and Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos. In Finney’s words, the work is addressed to “both black and white, both enslaved and free, bystander and non-bystander. We were then and now, At War With Ourselves. All of us, one human battlefield.”
About the Kronos Quartet
The adventurous, inimitable Kronos Quartet, based in San Francisco, was founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973. With
thousands of performances, numerous worldwide tours, pathbreaking projects and commissions,
and over sixty recordings to their credit, Kronos may be the best-known and most influential
contemporary chamber ensemble in the world. Kronos has commissioned more than 1,000
works and arrangements for string quartet in a broad variety of musical genres, and
collaborated with many of the world’s most accomplished composers and performers.
They have performed with artists including Allen Ginsberg, Astor Piazzolla, The National,
Wu Man, Zakir Hussain, Amanda Palmer, k.d. lang, Tom Waits, David Bowie, Paul McCartney
and Björk, and recorded with musicians such as Nelly Furtado, Faith No More, Joan
Armatrading, Nine Inch Nails and the Dave Mathews Band.
Conductor Valerie Sainte-Agathe, artistic director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus since 2013, has collaborated
with artists such as Deborah Voigt, Philip Glass, Aaron Jay Kernis, Gustavo Dudamel
and Michael Tilson Thomas. She has performed with the New Century Chamber Orchestra,
The Knights Orchestra, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Kronos Quartet and Tenet Ensemble. In
2018 she made her Carnegie Hall debut, conducting the Philip Glass Ensemble. During
the 2018-19 season she served as artist in residence for Kronos Festival 2019. Ms.
Sainte-Agathe served as music director for the Young Singers program of the Montpellier
National Symphony and Opera in France from 1998-2011.
The chorus for At War With Ourselves: 400 Years of You is comprised of professional singers from
throughout the Columbia region — some coming from as far away as Greenville, SC — many
of them also teachers. Included are students and professors from University of South
Carolina, Columbia College, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, and Dreher High School. The
choir is prepared by Jared Johnson, Canon Organist and Choirmaster, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.
Featured Visual Artist
Each Southern Exposure concert is paired with a local visual artist whose works relate
thematically and visually to the evening’s musical program. This concert’s featured
artist is Tyrone Geter, a Columbia-based artist who formerly taught at Benedict College. Selected paintings
and drawings will be on display in the Koger Center on April 3, and in the School
of Music Library the weeks preceding and following the concert. Mr. Geter’s art can
be seen here.
Credits
At War with Ourselves - 400 Years of You was commissioned by the Kronos Performing Arts Association, funded in part by a Hewlett
Foundation 50 Arts Commission and the MAP Fund, in partnership with ASU Gammage at
Arizona State University, Hancher Auditorium–The University of Iowa, Krannert Center
for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, SFJAZZ, Texas
Performing Arts at UT Austin, and the University of South Carolina. The Kronos Quartet
residency is sponsored in part by a Visiting Scholars Grant from the UofSC Office
of the Provost. The At War With Ourselves choir is made possible thanks to a generous
donation from UofSC’s African American Studies Program and the College of Arts and
Sciences.
Questions about the At War With Ourselves - 400 Years of You workshop and performance may be directed to Michael Harley.
More information about the University of South Carolina's Southern Exposure New Music
Series is here.