Intriguing new music with strings attached
Future music historians, assuming there are any, are going to look back on this as a golden age of the string quartet. From the established masters (the Kronos and Arditti Quartets) to the younger newmusic ensembles that seem to keep sprouting up, there’s a growing sense that this old-fashioned configuration of instruments still has a lot to convey.
Few groups have underscored this point like the Jack Quartet, which makes a welcome return to San Francisco this weekend together with the astoundingly gifted cellist Joshua Roman. On the program is music by the New York composer Jefferson Friedman — who is busy redefining the string quartet genre — as well as Amy Williams, John Zorn and Roman himself.
The Renaissance madrigalist Carlo Gesualdo is also due to put in an appearance.