Kronos Quartet Celebrates Mahalia Jackson: A Groundbreaking Tribute at NJPAC

Grammy-winning string quartet Kronos Quartet will bring the voice of powerhouse gospel great Mahalia Jackson to Newark’s NJPAC next month. 

“The best thing about Kronos is the love of music from all over the world. It’s what makes them amazing,” said the newest member and violinist, Gabriela Diaz, in a sit-down interview with NJ Urban News. 

The legendary quartet performed at the venue during its inaugural season in 1997, and in that same season, a musical tribute was paid to Mahaliahe two will meet again, this time for an unforgettable experience Jackson. Now, t that was decades in the making.

Glorious Mahalia, arranged by some of the leading composers of today, will feature not just music from the gospel great but her actual voice, as recorded in interviews with famed radio broadcaster Studs Terkel. “They were friends,” explained founding quartet member David Harrington. “In the late ’50s and early ’60s, for a Black woman to be speaking to a white man on the radio was unheard of.” 

Harrington took his research for the show even further by meeting with Dr. Clarence Jones, speech writer and attorney for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Jones reported that Dr. King and Mahalia Jackson were great friends, reporting that when King was depressed, he would often call Jackson and ask her to sing to him. At the March on Washington in August 1963, Jackson sang a few minutes before the famous I Have a Dream speech.

As Jones reported, King hesitated before giving the most notable part of the speech, and it was Jackson who spurred him on by yelling out, “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” A recording of this important recollection of events will be featured in an arrangement performed at the November 23rd show.

“When I heard the story of King and Mahalia, it was an aha moment for me as a musician,” said Harrington. “The best thing musicians can give our society and our world is our listening,” he declared. 

Harrington said Kronos has always been intentional about speaking to real issues with their music since its inception in 1973, with today being no different. The quartet looks forward to continuing to push the limits of what is considered classical music—the sort of thinking outside the box that has always set this famous group apart. “It’s [the quartet] not stuffy classical,” said Diaz.

“The thing about music is that none of us own it,” said Harrington. “They want to put fences around it—Quartet over here and rap over there. The exploration of music has no boundaries.” 

It is with this mindset that the Kronos Quartet—with a resume that includes an impressive 5 film scores, and more than 40 studio albums—aims to surprise and delight music lovers on stage at NJPAC in November. 

Visit www.njpac.org for Ticket Information