Nunavut

Featuring a ground-breaking collaboration between the Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet and Inuit vocalist Tanya Tagaq, Nunavut's program was created as a means of exploring the clarity, directness and unique relationships of music from the far north.

The Kronos Quartet has always explored musical territory far beyond the boundaries of traditional string-quartet repertoire, collaborating with such diverse composers and performers as Philip Glass, Bollywood diva Asha Bhosle, and Tom Waits.

Tanya Tagaq, whose collaborators have included the Icelandic vocalist Björk and the Galician Celtic group Lau, is no less eclectic in her art, adapting the distinctive call-and-response improvisations of Inuit throat singing to such radically different urban styles as electronica, dance and rave. Traditionally performed by two women attempting to outdo each other as they vocalize in turns, the second throat singer in Nunavut is the quartet.

Also featured will be works by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho; Canadian composer and flautist Derek Charke; Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós; Norwegian electrofunk band Xploding Plastix and the world premiere of a piece commissioned for Luminato by Hurdy-Gurdy.