hard rain: kronos quartet and alliSon russell
16 July 2025
The date is special: 80 years since the Trinity Test, the first nuclear detonation. The risk of nuclear annihilation has not shrunk; it has never been so high.
The place is special: the Logan Theater on the University of Chicago campus — a stone’s throw from the site of the first nuclear reactor.
The Kronos Quartet’s concert builds to a moment of unbearable emotional intensity with Allison Russell’s performance of Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall.
The concert is our third concert collaboration with the Kronos Quartet and comes on the day we release Hard Rain, our first EP (three songs!). The music in interspersed with four readings of moments in the nuclear age:
The immediate aftermath of Hiroshima: “I was terribly afraid. It was then that black drops of rain, as big as blackberries began to fall. There was a heavy black shower. The houses standing on both sides of the hill were already on fire.”
Nikita Khrushchev’s powerful, poignant letter to John F. Kennedy: “Mr. President, we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter that knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot, and what that would mean is not for me to explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly of what terrible forces our countries dispose.”
A secretely-recorded plot by Saddam Hussein: “We should consider losses in the thousands, thousands, so that we plan to be prepared to lose in those 12 months 50,000 martyrs and keep going.”
Excerpts from a speech by General Lee Butler, Commander, Strategic Air Command: “With the possible exception of the Soviet nuclear war plan, this was the single most absurd and irresponsible document I had ever reviewed in my life.
Review
"The nuclear age began in earnest on July 16, 1945. In a vast expanse of New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert, the United States Army detonated the first plutonium bomb. 80 years later, roughly 20 Nobel Laureates and about 60 leading nuclear experts convened at UChicago from July 14–16 to discuss potential solutions to the ever-increasing threat of a nuclear apocalypse and sign a document expressing their concerns to the general public and the powers that be: 13 calls to action collectively named The Nobel Laureate Assembly Declaration for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
On the assembly’s final evening, laureates, physicists, diplomats, activists, professors, and students gathered to watch Kronos Quartet’s concluding performance. The modern classical group’s program of pieces — some angry, some tender, some heartbreaking — reflected on the urgency of the crisis we face, and the weight of history building to it. After three days of talking, it was time to listen.
Programme
Good Medicine from Salome Dances for Peace* Composer: Terry Riley
Colonizer (Remix)+ Composer: Tanya Tagaq (arr. Tanya Tagaq, Kronos Quartet, and Joel Tarman)
Flow+ Composer: Laurie Anderson (arr. Jacob Garchik)
Excerpts from Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto’s diary, August 1946, read by TATSUJIRO SUZUKI
Hujan* from Segara Composer:Gunung Peni Candra Rini (arr. Jacob Garchik & Andy McGraw)
Fólk fær andlit Composer: Hildur Guðnadóttir (arr. Kronos Quartet)
Excerpts from Nikita Khrushchev letter to John F. Kennedy, October 1962 read by TOGZHAN KASSENOVA
One Earth, One People, One Love from Sun Rings* Composer: Terry Riley
INTERMISSION
Keep Going: II. Isabel* Composer: Gabriella Smith
Mishima Quartet: VI. Mishima/Closing Composer: Philip Glass
Excerpts from Saddam Hussein tapes, 1979 and 1991 read by SCOTT SAGAN
Next Week’s Trees Composer: Viet Cuong
For All We Know (inspired by Nina Simone)+ Composer: J. Fred Coots (arr. Jacob Garchik)
Tusen Tankar (A Thousand Thoughts)+ Composer: Traditional (arr. Kronos, transc. Ljova)
General Lee Butler, Commander, Strategic Air Command, address to the Canadian Network Against Nuclear Weapons (1999) read by ALEX WELLERSTEIN
Kiss Yo’ Ass Goodbye* Composer: Sun Ra, Terry Riley & Sara Miyamoto (arr. Paul Wiancko)
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall+ Composer: Bob Dylan (arr. Paul Wiancko) with special guest, ALLISON RUSSELL
* Written for Kronos
** Written for Kronos Fifty for the Future
+ Arranged for Kronos
Event producers: OWEN GAFFNEY, PER OLSSON (Nobel Prize Outreach and Strange Attractors)
Readings organised by SCOTT SAGAN