Multiple Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet returned to headline the 2020 Smith Concert Series at Transylvania Jan. 28. The free concert series started in 2007 with Kronos and has welcomed a wide range of performers to the Lexington campus ever since.
The 2020 program included contemporary and traditional compositions, with unique Kronos arrangements, ranging from George Gershwin’s “Summertime” to John Coltrane’s “Alabama” and a suite titled “Glorious Mahalia” by Stacy Garrop that features the recorded voices of Mahalia Jackson and Studs Terkel.
Prior to the concert, quartet members met with Transylvania music students, inspiring students with their career stories, as well as offering suggestions to the young musicians.
“The fact that we can sit down and have an intimate, candid conversation with four members of such an astounding group is really meaningful to me,” said MacKenzie Sloan ’22, a political science major and history minor who has a fine arts scholarship.