Winter Was Hard

Winter Was Hard is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet. It contains compositions by Aulis Sallinen, Terry Riley, Arvo Pärt, Anton Webern, John Zorn, John Lurie, Ástor Piazzolla, Alfred Schnittke, and Samuel Barber.

Critical reception
The album was listed at #11 in the Los Angeles Times Classical Top 25 of 1989. Brian Olewnick, in the All Music Guide to Jazz, calls it a "fairly typical early mélange type recording by Kronos, mixing in au courant contemporary fare with a downtown edge and 20th century classics."

Musicians

 * David Harrington – violin
 * John Sherba – violin
 * Hank Dutt – viola
 * Joan Jeanrenaud – cello
 * San Francisco Girls Chorus, Elizabeth Appling, director ("Winter Was Hard Op. 20")
 * Earl L. Miller – reed organ ("Winter Was Hard Op. 20")
 * Christian Marclay – turntables ("Forbidden Fruit")
 * Ohta Hiromi – voice ("Forbidden Fruit")

Production

 * Tracks 1–4, 6–10 recorded November 1987 at Methuen Memorial Music Hall, Methuen, Massachusetts
 * John Newton – Engineer
 * Track 1 recorded January 1988 at St. Ignatius Church, San Francisco, CA
 * Howard Johnston, John Newton – Engineers
 * Track 5 produced by John Zorn, recorded September 1987 at Russian Hill Recording, San Francisco, CA (Howard Johnston – Engineer) and at Metal Box Studio, Tokyo, Japan (Ono Seigen – Engineer); mixed September 1987 at CBS Roppongi Studio, Tokyo, Japan by Ono Seigen