Bass Concert Hall (
3/27 – Kronos Quartet and Sam Green
A Thousand Thoughts
A Live Documentary with Kronos Quartet
Written and Directed by Sam Green and Joe Bini
Presented in partnership with the Butler School of Music and KMFA-FM
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sam Green and Grammy-winning Kronos Quartet have teamed up for a wildly creative multimedia performance piece that blends live music and narration with archival footage and filmed interviews with such prominent artists as Philip Glass, Tanya Tagaq, Steve Reich, Wu Man, and Terry Riley. As Green tells the multi-decade and continent-spanning story of the groundbreaking string quartet, Kronos revisits its extensive body of work, performing music by George Crumb, Laurie Anderson, John Cage, and many others. Together on stage, Green and Kronos craft an important record and exploration of late 20th– and early 21st–century music. Transcending the typical live music and film event, this collaboration quickly becomes a meditation on music itself—the act of listening to it closely, the experience of feeling it deeply, and the power that it has to change the world.
No American ensemble has had a more far-reaching impact on the development of contemporary classical music than the San Francisco–based Kronos Quartet.
– Listen Magazine
A Thousand Thoughts - trailer. Sam Green and Kronos Quartet from Utopia Plus on Vimeo.
Fun Facts:
- A Thousand Thoughts made its official debut as part of the New Frontier program at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival which features experimental works.
- Kronos’ work was featured in the Academy Award–nominated documentaries How to Survive a Plague and Dirty Wars. Kronos also performed film scores by Philip Glass, Clint Mansell, Terry Riley, and Jacob Garchik.
- Kronos Quartet has performed live with the poet Allen Ginsberg, Astor Piazzolla, The National, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Tom Waits, David Bowie, Paul McCartney and Björk.
- Green’s previous “live documentaries” include The Measure of All Things and The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller, featuring the indie rock band Yo La Tengo.
- Green's 2004 film, The Weather Underground, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.
- In 1987, Kronos Quartet visited Sesame Street and played soccer with Big Bird and explained how playing soccer is similar to making music.