Aleksandra Vrebalov

THE SEA RANCH SONGS

KRONOS QUARTET
Video and animation by

Andrew Lyndon

The Sea Ranch is a place where an entire community is dedicated to

living, building, and interacting with its surroundingsin harmonious and
responsible ways. We celebrate the nature, people, and architecture of this
magical place by creating a piece withoriginal music, documented sounds,
and visual samples of different aspects of life and creativity in this rare
landscape where peopleand nature are intertwined in a healthy union. The
Sea Ranch idea on a global scale might be utopian, but through music we
willpraise its beauty and affirm its urgent relevance in our wounded world,
so much in need of healing.

ALEKSANDRA VREBALOV and DAVID HARRINGTON

Aleksandra Vrebalov

THE SEA RANCH SONGS

(2015)

1. Spirit I
2. Fort Ross Chorale
3. Gratitude
4. Numbers
5. Ideas: Condominium One
6. Creatures
7. Chapel, Rainbows
8. Elements I
9. Starry Night
10. Ideas: Barn Fugue
11. Spirit II
12. Elements II
13. Gratitude, Coda

KRONOS QUARTET
David Harrington, violin
John Sherba, violin
Hank Dutt, viola
Sunny Yang, cello

THE SEA RANCH:

Dimensions of Experience
Donlyn Lyndon

he Sea Ranch is a unique example of landscape development, stretching for ten miles along the northern
California coast. Geographic advantage and great natural beauty have been joined here with bold initial
planning, place-related architecture, and a process of continuing nurture and evolution. As a managed landscape
it draws upon the talents and skills of its stewards: the staff of The Sea Ranch Association, which oversees its
comprehensive maintenance and development; the individual owners who invest in its evolution; and the architects
and contractors who build here. Together, bound by a legal covenant to care for the land, they have fashioned an
exceptional place.
Located on the Sonoma coast, at the western edge of the North American continent, The Sea Ranch is a little over
one hundred miles north of the San Francisco Bay Area and three hundred miles south of the California/Oregon
border, sitting just south of the Gualala River, the border between Sonoma and Mendocino counties. Gualala,
founded in 1858, is immediately north of the river. Once a lumbering community, it is now a busy commercial
center. Neighboring The Sea Ranch to the south is Stewarts Point, with a store, farm, and one-time hotel for
lumberers dating back to 1868; to the east are large areas of rugged timber land, a small Kashia-Pomo Indian
reservation, and the hamlet of Annapolis, with a region-serving elementary school. Farther afield to the south,
on a promontory on the ocean, is Fort Ross, a wooden complex built by Russians in 1812 and now a state park. It
was the southernmost Russian settlement along the northwest coast of the continent. Highway 1 stretches through
The Sea Ranch, a spectacularly scenic road that proceeds, with sometimes perilous windings, north and south
along the California coast.

The Sea Ranch, founded in 1965 as a second home community, now includes nearly 2,300 properties. Its owners
become members of The Sea Ranch Association and share ownership of 2,254 acres of common land. About a
third are now permanent residents; others visit with varying degrees of frequency, and in many cases share their
houses through a rental program. At the beginning of 2016, there were approximately 1,800 houses, a lodge,
several commonly held recreation and community buildings, and three commercial structures in the 5,200-acre
development, with some 470 sites yet to be developed.
Geologically, the locale lies along the western edge of the San Andreas Fault, an area uplifted by the collision
of the Pacific and North American plates. The Sea Ranch boundaries reach to the top of Miller Ridge and nearly
all of its land lies on the western face of that ridge. The experience of being here is thus dominated by the fall
of the land toward the sea as well as by the constant call of the Ocean. The slope of the land is often precipitous
in the forests, whereas it is more gentle, undulating but inexorable, in the meadows of the coastal shelf west
of Highway 1. Either way the slope leads to the sea, just as certainly as the eye is constantly drawn toward the
shimmering horizon.
The joining of land and sea along the bluffs results in a rich and complex landscape of rocks, beaches, and
endlessly varied cliffs. Numerous coves, each distinct, provide homes to the abundant wildlife above and below
the surface. The shapes and colors of the rocks, which are littered with moss, lichen, or bird droppings; the
strings of kelp that thread through the surf and lodge on the land; and the patterns of bird flight above, all
combine to produce an astounding intricacy of texture, color, and movement. The coves and promontories give a
structure to the land that can be named and remembered. Many of them are distinctly memorable, as their names,
such as Black Point, Pebble Beach, Smugglers Cove, Walk-on Beach, and Del Mar Point, suggest. Hiking trails run
for nearly ten miles through land held in common along this ocean edge, with various points of access to the
rocks and sand below.
The Sea Ranch is more than an encounter with the sea, however. Above the cliffs, trails lead across wide, open
meadows, punctuated by cypress hedgerows, and up into the forests. Here a completely different ecology prevails
among steep slopes and twisting ravines, with towering redwoods, fir, and pine; twisting red manzanita and
white-barked pin oak; rhododendrons; wild azaleas; and ubiquitous pine needles and ferns, all cast in the shade
except when highlighted by shifting pinholes of sun and occasional clearings. Finally, over the ridge and down
by the side of the Gualala River lies the Hot Spot, a clearing along the forested shore that used to be a beloved
picnicking spot, where children could swim in the shallow river, immune from the surging tides and bitter cold
of the ocean.

Interlaced through this landscape are clusters and strings of buildings that edge the meadows, recede into the
forests, and occasionally stand out along the bluffs. Their weathered and grayed wood surfaced walls and their
generally dark, sloping roofs soften their presence in the scene, especially when backed up against the vegetation
and away from the shore. There are few houses that look just alike, yet many that seem similar, sharing in some
semblance of accord.
In parts of The Sea Ranch, houses coalesce into groupings that complement and help to define the distinctive
form and character of this landscape; in other parts they spread aimlessly through grassy terrain. At their best, the
buildings work with the ecology of the place, interacting with the land and the climate in ways that make it livable,
without obliterating its essential character. Nearly always the awareness of nature remains prominent; in some
parts just barely, in most parts triumphantly so. In the midst of this extended landscape there are many sites and
buildings of real distinction, genuinely creative interpretations of what it can mean to build in this particular place
architecture that rewards close attention.
It is the coast, primarily, that brings people here; the touch of the wild that is so vigorously embodied in the
shoreline itself: its ceaseless surf, varying in intensity and threat; the traces of unfathomable time revealed in the
layers of its bluffs and projecting rocks; the endless process of water eating away at the land from the sea and
furrowing down across its surfaces in creeks and swales; and the limitless sky tingeing the earth with its fluctuating
colors and floating great cloud forms above it. Within this encompassing frame we see, however fleetingly, the
resurgent impulses of life. The clutch of mollusks, the darting and soaring of birds, and the scurry of fauna in
neighboring grasslands and forests, each blade of grass and needle of tree recounts the tale of life within. They echo
the recurrent and ultimately transient rhythms of our own lives. The Sea Ranch engages and nurtures our attention.

Donlyn Lyndon was one of the founding partners of Moore Lyndon Turnbull Whitaker (MLTW), which won international recognition for
the design of Condominium One at The Sea Ranch, now on the National Register of Historic Places. He is the Eva Li Professor Emeritus of
Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California, Berkeley, and chair of The Sea Ranch Commons Landscape Committee.

Aleksandra Vrebalov

THE SEA RANCH SONGS

The Sea Ranch Songs, written in 2015, celebrates the
50th birthday of The Sea Ranch, and is dedicated to the
spirit, nature, and architecture of this magical place.

KRONOS QUARTET
For more than 40 years, San Franciscos Kronos QuartetDavid Harrington (violin), John Sherba
(violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Sunny Yang (cello)has combined a spirit of fearless exploration with
a commitment to continually re-imagining the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has
become one of the worlds most celebrated and influential ensembles, performing thousands of concerts,
releasing more than 50 recordings, collaborating with an eclectic mix of composers and performers,
and commissioning over 850 works and arrangements for string quartet. A Grammy winner, Kronos
also received the Polar Music Prize and the Avery Fisher Prize. The non-profit Kronos Performing Arts
Association (KPAA) manages all aspects of Kronos work, including the commissioning of new works,
concert tours and home-season performances, education programs, and its presenting program KRONOS
PRESENTS. In 2015 KPAA launched a new 5-year commissioning and education initiative, Fifty for the
Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, which will commission 50 new works (5 by women and 5 by men
each year) designed to train students and emerging professionals, and be distributed online for free.

ALEKSANDRA VREBALOV
Aleksandra Vrebalov (b. 1970) has written works ranging from concert music to opera (Mileva, in two
acts, 2011), dance (Rambert Dance UK, Dusan Tynek Dance Theater NYC, Take Dance NYC, Scottish
National Ballet), and sound installations in collaboration with architect Ronit Eisenbach. Her most
recent works have been commissioned by Opera of the Serbian National Theater, Carnegie Hall, Belgrade
Philharmonic, ASCAP, and Rambert Dance. Vrebalov, a fellow of MacDowell Colony, Rockefeller Bellagio
Center, Djerassi, American Opera Projects, The Hermitage, and Tanglewood, is the recipient of the
Harvard Fromm Commission, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Fellowship,
Barlow Endowment Commission, as well as the MAP Fund and Meet the Composer grants. Her works
have been recorded for Cantaloupe, Nonesuch, Innova, Centaur Records, and Vienna Modern Masters.
Her work with Kronos Quartet and filmmaker Bill Morrison Beyond Zero: 1914 1918 is available on Ikarus
Films. Vrebalov is self-published at PhiPress (ASCAP). The score and recording of My Desert, My Rose,
commissioned as part Kronos Fifty for the Future project, are available to string quartets worldwide for
free download.

ANDREW LYNDON
Andrew Lyndon is a videographer, animator, and filmmaker who makes stand-alone video, freelance
multimedia work, video theater sets, and narrative film. Lyndon was the digital imaging and video
instructor at Pixar Animation Studios, and the editor for the SIGGRAPH 2005 Computer Animation
Festival (CAF), producing and editing the festival trailers. His animated video Cat Black Sea was included
in the Milkbar International Film Festival in 2007, which screened in San Francisco and St. Petersburg,
Russia. In 2008 he developed animation and titles for the documentary Mirrors of Privilege: Making
Whiteness Visible; motion graphics for the Ella Baker Foundation; and was a NEA Artist in Residence at
the Exploratorium in San Francisco. In 2010, he curated From Pencil to Pixel, an exhibition of Bay Area
animation studios for the Oakland Museum of California at the Oakland International Airport. In 2013
he created animation and motion graphics for the California Department of Educations early childhood
education training program, and contributed animation for the documentary The Battle of AmFar, which
premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Produced by Kronos Quartet and Aleksandra Vrebalov

Recorded December 2015 at Studio Trilogy, San Francisco, California
Engineered and mixed by Laura Dean
Assistant Engineer: Alex Spencer
Mixed at Studio Trilogy and Women's Audio Mission, San Francisco, California
Assistant Mixing Engineers: Aimee Hamel, Maryam Qudus, Erin Baumann
Mastered by Paul Zinman, SoundByte, New York, New York
DVD authoring: Mike Fossenkemper, Turtletone Studios, New York, NY
DVD menus: John Brown @ cloud chamber
Art direction and album art: Denise Burt
The album art includes works by the following contributors: versageek, Seagull Silhouette (CC BY-SA 2.0), John Lambert Pearson, Sea Ranch
Panoramic (CC BY 2.0), Sanfranman59, Knipp and Stengel Ranch Barn (CC BY-SA 3.0) and a video still of underwater scene by Andrew Lyndon
The liner note by Donlyn Lyndon is adapted from The Sea Ranch: Dimensions of Experience, an essay in The Sea Ranch: Fifty Years of Architecture,
Landscape, Place and Community on the Northern California Coast by Donlyn Lyndon and Jim Alinder, published by the Princeton Architectural Press,
2014. Used with permission.

For the Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association: Janet Cowperthwaite, Managing Director; with Sidney Chen, Mason Dille, Scott
Fraser, Sasha Hnatkovich, Reshena Liao, Nikols McConnie-Saad, Kren Nagy, and Lucinda Toy
Recording licensed courtesy of Kronos Performing Arts Association

2016 Kronos Performing Arts Association

The Sea Ranch Songs is published by PhiPress.

The Sea Ranch name is used with permission of The Sea Ranch Association.
Aleksandra VrebalovsThe Sea Ranch Songswas commissioned for the Kronos Quartetby the community of The Sea Ranch in celebration ofits 50th
Birthday, with special thanks to Marilyn Green and Drew McCalley, Andrea Lunsford, Donlyn Lyndon and Alice Wingwall, Dennisand Nancy
Marks, andJohn and Nancy Fox.
This audiovisual recording ofThe Sea Ranch Songswas produced with generous support from Susan Day, Marilyn Green and Drew McCalley,
Andrea Lunsford, Nancy and Dennis Marks, Donlyn Lyndon and Alice Wingwall, Gregory Moore, and Philip and Christina Zimbardo. Additional
support was provided by members of The Sea Ranch community and other individuals.

Visual Contributors to The Sea Ranch Songs:

The Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania; Charles Moore Foundation; David Rumsey Map Collection; Environmental Design Archives,
University of California, Berkeley; Christopher Noll; Tristan Oliver; Robert J. Scarola; Seadreams Productions | Ken Bailey; The Sea Ranch Association;
Turnbull Griffin Haesloop Architects
Audio Contributors to The Sea Ranch Songs (in order of appearance):
Kashia-Pomo medicine man Lorin Smith; Susan Clark; Tom Cochrane; Rob Elder; Donlyn Lyndon; Fiona ONeil; Sally and Jer Skibbins; Ellen Thompson; Alice
Wingwall; Mike Lane; Miroslav Tadic | excerpts from May 11 for Sasha by Miroslav Tadic, used by permission; Mary Alinder; Dick Soul; Carolyn Andre;
Jackie Gardener; Andrea Lunsford; Greg Moore; Esther and James Munger; and Elizabeth Somers.
Andrew Lyndon thanks Jim Alinder; Janice Bonora; Mary Griffin; Eric Haesloop; Kevin Keim; Thamby Kumaran | Kumaran Design; Jack Likins; Waverly B.
Lowell; Donlyn Lyndon; Jim Mahoney; Chris Marino; Evan Neff; Heather Isbell Schumacher, C.A.; Colin Searles; Richard Whitaker; William Whitaker; and
Diane Wilson
For their generous support and resources, Aleksandra Vrebalov thanks Donlyn Lyndon and Alice Wingwall; Mary and Jim Alinder; Andrea Lunsford; Robin
Joy Wellman; Greg Moore; Esther and James Munger; Gabriel Ramirez and Sarah Williams; Mike Lane; Marilyn Green and Drew McCalley; Rob Elder; The
Sea Ranch Archives Committee; Djerassi Resident Artist Program; and John King
The Kronos Quartet thanks Regan Harrington; Mizue, Holland and Jason Sherba; Greg Dubinsky; and Paul Yang and Stella Lee

Executive producers: Michael Gordon, David Lang, Kenny Savelson and Julia Wolfe
Label manager: Bill Murphy
Cantaloupe sales manager: Adam Cuthbert

For more about everything you hear on this CD, visit cantaloupemusic.com and kronosquartet.org. To get specially priced advance copies
of all our new releases, as well as catalog discounts and other perks, join the Cantaloupe Club at club.bangonacan.org, or join our digital
subscription service at drip.com/cantaloupe.
UPC/EAN: 713746312220