Kronos Quartet, Patti Smith win Polar Music Prize

The Kronos Quartet and the legendary US rock singer and poet Patti Smith have won this year’s Polar Music prize, organisers said.

“For almost 40 years, the Kronos Quartet has been revolutionising the potential of the string quartet genre when it comes to both style and content,” the jury said in its citation. “The same type of chamber music ensemble – two violins, a viola and a cello – for which Mozart and Beethoven wrote can also be used to comment on international politics, interpret avant-garde rock and incorporate music from every corner of the world,” it added. The quartet is made up of violin-players David Harrington and John Sherba, Hank Dutt on the viola and cello player Jeffrey Zeigler.

As for 64-year-old rocker Ms Smith, she “has demonstrated how much rock’n’roll there is in poetry and how much poetry there is in rock’n’roll,” the jury said.

“Patti Smith is a Rimbaud with Marshall amps. She has transformed the way an entire generation looks, thinks and dreams. With her inimitable soul of an artist, Patti Smith proves over and over again that people have the power,” it added.