Osher Marin JCC Kanbar Center, June 11
Last month San Francisco’s internationally acclaimed Kronos Quartet performed at the Marin JCC Kanbar Center, an acoustically flawless, intimate venue, making it ideal for the evening’s Sufi-inspired program. The Kronos Quartet, as usual, played widely diverse music that included many genres.
The bill featured compositions from the Middle East, Europe, and, of course, the US. Recognizable were compositions by Peter Townsend, Laurie Anderson, and the Janis Joplin arrangement of George Gershwin’s “Summertime.” The foreign-composed Sufi pieces displayed the quartet’s extraordinary range and dazzling musicianship. The program provided a veritable fireworks display—one skyrocket of musical pleasure bursting after another, descending gloriously onto the listeners’ ears. I could manage only a single-word reaction afterward: “Wow!”
—ROY STRASSMAN