Kronos Quartet to play haunting 'WTC 9/11'

Six years after UApresents canceled the Kronos Quartet, it is bringing the group back for a concert at Centennial Hall Sunday.

The quartet is coming here to perform minimalist composer Steve Reich's new work "WTC 9/11," which Kronos commissioned from the Pulitzer Prize winner. The piece reflects the feelings of the Sept. 11, 2001, bombing of the World Trade Center, incorporating archival audio of dispatchers and air traffic controllers, as well as interviews with Reich's friends and neighbors in Manhattan, according to Triangle Arts & Entertainment Magazine, which reviewed the March 19 world premiere of the piece in North Carolina.

The magazine called the text chilling: "From the FDNY dispatchers: 'go ahead / Plane just crashed - / Plane just crashed into the World Trade;' from NORAD, 'No / contact / with the pilot / whatsoever;' from FDNY officers and the first ambulance driver to arrive at the World Trade Center, 'My eyes just kind of shot up / flames…Everyone was running / running / Everyone was running and screaming / Then - / Then / The second plane hit'."

"Reich's new, electrifying work lingers with you," the magazine wrote. "It haunts you. Much like the events of Sept. 11 still haunt the American people."

Kronos will come here after having performed the piece only two times - the premiere in Durham, N.C., and at a concert in South Carolina two days later.

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The last time the group was to have played Tucson - long a favorite stop for the the nearly 40-year-old ensemble - UApresents canceled the show and four other performances to bridge a growing budget gap. The arts presenter had lost $225,000 from its fall 2004 run of the Broadway musical "Hairspray." Kronos was to have come to Tucson the following spring.

At the time, Kronos - violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt and cellist Jeffrey Zeigler - was to have played "Visual Music," a program co-commissioned by UApresents.

Sunday's concert begins at 7 p.m. at Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd. on the University of Arizona campus.

Tickets are $29-$59 with discounts available at www.uapresents.org or by calling 621-3341.