KRONOS QUARTET, INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S CHOIR, “Awakening,” Kingsbury Hall, Sept. 13

One only needs to glance at the biography of the Kronos Quartet to know that we had a musical powerhouse in town Tuesday evening. With thousands of concerts behind it, along with over 45 successful recordings released on Nonesuch (one of the hippest record labels around) the career of this San Francisco based quartet has been quite impressive. But there’s more: it’s received several prestigious awards, including the Polar Music Prize and the Avery Fisher Prize, as well as a Grammy for best chamber performance.  It’s also collaborated with a startlingly large number of today’s important composers and performers, commissioned more than 750 new works for string quartet, and appeared in several film scores while working with film luminaries like Darren Aronofsky and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

With this in mind, it’s not a stretch to claim that the Kronos Quartet is the most relevant chamber music ensemble currently active. Its career development is a model for other ensembles to study. Early in their careers they made a splash by recording music by Jimi Hendrix, Thelonius Monk and Bill Evans, but don’t try to dismiss them as a “pop” quartet, though. They’ve also recorded top-shelf performances of music by a ton of “serious” composers like Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Henryk Gorecki, Witold Lutoslawski, George Crumb, and Philip Glass. (All these recordings are highly recommended. The performance on the Crumb disc, in particular, would have felt right at home during the Tuesday concert.) On the other hand, don’t try to dismiss them as an ethno-centric group who only performs music written by European and North American white men. The Kronos Quartet has done more to bring the music of other cultures to us than any other comparable ensemble in history.

So it was with great interest that I learned about their current tour and a sense of relief when I saw that Salt Lake City had made it to the list of concert dates. I did feel a bit of trepidation, though, when I saw that the concert would be yet another “9/11” themed event. This isn’t to say that remembering that terrible day is a bad idea. It’s simply become distasteful to me that so many of us seem to see this 10 year anniversary as an excuse to cash in on perhaps the only cultural event that every American of this era truly shares. (Warning: some readers may find the language in this video link to be offensive, but it is edited, and contains very smart and timely commentary on this issue, and more than a bit of humor.)

Thankfully, the quartet didn’t seem intent on mere profit when planning this concert tour. No, the Kronos Quartet, with its wide range of musical expression, its experiences traveling the world and its status as a cultural icon, was well prepared and well positioned to handle a weighty issue such as the events on Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent period, with grace and dignity. The quartet’s approach was not to dwell on the death and destruction, but to urge us to return to that brief moment of national (and international) unity following the disaster. This lofty goal was attempted through a presentation of music and other forms of expression from many cultures and nationalities (including those of so-called enemies of the U.S. like Iran and Iraq). It seemed to be gently reminding us that we are all one people who share this small planet.

The performance didn’t disappoint. Labeled as “a musical meditation on the anniversary of 9/11,” the concert performance often contained hushed music and tones hovering just above the sound of a shimmering drone. One remarkable piece were the selections taken from The Sad Park by American composer Michael Gordon. It contained a short recording of a child’s speech that was digitally altered to play back over longer periods of time with each repetition. This created an effect where the original short syllables and patterns in the child’s speech became gradually more hypnotic, singing and dreamlike the more it was stretched. The quartet offered a very subtle and restrained sound to accompany this single piece of recorded speech and as the syllables became longer over time, the quartet became increasingly active until the speech became so slow as to sound like a synthesizer producing slowly mutating and pulsing tones in the background.

The quartet has always had a special gift at sifting the gems from the vast sea of new music being produced, and for this tour it focused its attention mainly outside the United States by featuring music like a Ljova/Kronos arrangement of an intense and frenzied Iraqi work Oh Mother, The Handsome Man Tortures Me (based on a recording from the Saddam Era), along with the enchanting and beautiful modality of a traditional Lullaby from Iran (inspired by the Iranian performers Jahle), and the sublime Alap, an Indian Raga by Ram Narayan.

Perhaps the most memorable piece of the night, though, was Armenia by the German band Einstürzende Neubauten. It was a dark and bizarre mix of sculpture, theater, performance art, percussion and strings. Featuring a safety-goggle-clad cellist operating industrial power tools, along with others playing percussion on scrap metal sculpture objects, the piece was a nightmarish and tension filled moment in sound and memory largely because of the vocal and violin performance by David Harrington, founder of the ensemble.

Overall, the concert was among the most enthralling musical experiences I can remember. The musicians’ command of their instruments and collective sonority was masterfully blended with pre-recorded sounds and applied to a wide range of musical compositions that suggested everything from sheer terror to sheer beauty. It’s a shame that so many seats in the beautiful Kingsbury Hall were left empty for a performance by one of the most compelling and accomplished ensembles we’re likely to encounter in our fair city.