KRONOS QUARTET Floodplain (2009 UK 12-track CD album - 'Floodplain' draws together work from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe - in particular from those nations whose external conflicts and internal divisions have often overshadowed their rich musical legacies. With these twelve specially commissioned tracks, Kronos Quartet explore centuries-old traditions while also presenting adventurous new music by young composers who sample and reinterpret aspects of their indigenous cultures. Some of these pieces have been adapted from the religious, folk, classical and popular music of Egypt, Lebanon, Azerbaijan and Iraq, among other places. Others were written for Kronos Quartet by such contemporary artists as the Palestinian electronic / hip hop collective Ramallah Underground [who Kronos founder David Harrington discovered via myspace] and the Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov. The arrangers and guest musicians working with Kronos gives 'Floodplain' a cross-cultural frisson: Modern composer Osvaldo Golijov, raised in Argentina by Eastern European Jewish parents, arranges 'Ya Habibi Ta'ala [My Love Come Quickly]', a song popularised in the forties by the glamorous young Egyptian star Asmahan. American trombonist and composer Jacob Garchik arranges Ramallah Underground's 'Tashweesh'. Tanzanian visual-conceptual artist Walter Kitundu creates special instruments combining record players and strings for a piece inspired by Ethiopian musician Alemu Aga, a master of the lyre-like instrument called the begena. For their rendition of 'Getme Getme [Don't Leave Don't Leave]', an Azerbaijani folkloric love song Kronos brought to their San Francisco home-base an improvisational ensemble led by the legendary Alim Qasimov, world-renowned performer of the Azerbaijani music known as mugham).