Kronos Quartet sets new album Forgive Us For 12/5

The pioneering, GRAMMY award-winning Kronos Quartet today confirms a new album, Forgive Us For set for release December 5 via Phenotypic Recordings—pre-order/pre-save here. The second single from the project, a rendition of Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s “Fólk fær andlit,” is available today—listen/share here.

 

Originally composed for cello (played by Guðnadóttir) and a polyphony of voices that repeatedly intone the Icelandic words miskun (mercy) and fyrirgefið okkur fyrir (forgive us for), Kronos reimagines “Fólk fær andlit” (“People Get Faces”) through their ever-forward thinking string quartet arrangement. The piece recounts a harrowing 2015 episode which saw the Icelandic government deport a group of Albanian families—including one with a critically ill child—in the middle of the night. Kronos renders the haunting vocal lines with sacred presence and solemnity.

On the track, founding first violinist David Harrington shares, “When I first heard Hildur’s piece, I actually thought she wrote it especially for Kronos. It just felt like a perfect extension of our work sonically. Once you hear Fólk fær andlit you can’t get it out of your imagination. I’ve always been attracted to music like that, which has an iconic sensibility. What we discovered in the recording was that we could color each layer infinitely.”

 

Expanding the group’s legacy of global collaboration and spirit of social activism, Forgive Us For addresses some of the most urgent crises and troubles worldwide. The first single, “Ya Taali’een el-Jabal” (“Oh, You Who Are Climbing Up the Mountain”), landed in October; performed by the late Palestinian singer Rim Banna (1966-2018), in an arrangement by Jonathan Berger, the piece emulates the Palestinian women who have traditionally sung the folk song to their imprisoned husbands to convey messages of freedom and liberation. Banna, who died from cancer in 2018, dedicated it to Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails. 

Also found in the collection is Ukrainian singer Mariana Sadovska’s “Chernobyl. The Harvest,” dedicated to the previous occupants of the now uninhabitable cities and villages abandoned after the 1986 nuclear reactor disaster. Based on harvest songs and other folk melodies that Sadovska gathered in Ukraine’s Polissia region, the song’s texts are intertwined with evacuation announcements from Chernobyl.

Unlike composers glossed as “nationalists” who typically draw on local folk music, history, myth, and legend to project uplifting sonic imagery of a nation’s heritage and collective identity, Guðnadóttir, Banna, and Sadovska call to witness voices that have been marginalized, ignored, or silenced. Though the three pieces are each bound to a place-specific trauma, their emotional force transcends borders, inviting listeners into a shared space of compassion.

 

Kronos cellist Paul Wiancko reflects, “There’s a unifying pain and struggle to these stories that are otherwise very different,” he explains. “They shed light on a part of humanity that we so deeply need to focus on in 2025 and beyond.”

 

The new album builds thematically on Kronos’ first release with Phenotypic Recordings, Mary Kouyoumdjian’s WITNESS, released in March 2025 to acclaim from NPR Music, The Strad, FLOOD and more. WITNESS combines testimonies of the composer’s family, friends, and community impacted by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide.

 

For more than 50 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet—David Harrington (violin), Gabriela Díaz (violin), Ayane Kozasa (viola), and Paul Wiancko (cello)—has challenged and reimagined what a string quartet can be. Founded at a time when the form was largely centered on long-established, Western European traditions, Kronos has been at the forefront of revolutionizing the string quartet into a living art form that responds to the people and issues of our time. The group has received more than 40 awards, including three GRAMMY Awards and the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre Prizes. In 2024, the Library of Congress announced its acquisition of the Archive of Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association, a collection that includes 50 years’ worth of manuscripts, instruments, costumes, video and audio recordings, photographs, and more, to be permanently housed in the Library’s Music Division alongside the storied histories of influential artists and composers from around the world.

 

Phenotypic Recordings brings to light new music by world-class musicians and innovative composers, with a focus on music that highlights the most important issues facing the world today. As another way of amplifying artistic voices, Pheno donates its revenue from streaming and downloads to support humanitarian causes identified by the artists making the music.

 

TRACK LIST
FORGIVE US FOR

1. Ya Taali’een el-Jabal

Traditional (Palestinian) arr. Jonathan Berger   ​

Performed by Kronos Quartet featuring the pre-recorded vocals of Rim Banna 

2. Fólk fær andlit​
Hildur Guðnadóttir arr. Kronos Quartet and Jeanne Velonis                  ​   
Performed by Kronos Quartet ​  
 

Mariana Sadovska                       

I.  Doroha. Дорога (The Road) dedicated to Ludmyla Ignatenko

II. Zhnyva. Жнива (The Harvest)

III. Platch. Плач (Lamentation)

IV. Rai. Рай (Paradise)

Performed by Kronos Quartet and Mariana Sadovska, vocals & harmonium