Highlights from the Fall Arts Guide

The Kronos Quartet

Sunday, Oct. 22

Music this week

Einstürzende Neubauten concerts in the early ’80s usually involved the band noisily hammering away with an array of menacing power tools—much to the detriment of the stage and to the dismay of the club owner. It’s unlikely that the Kronos Quartet will indulge in such destructive behavior during its performance of the German industrial group’s composition “Armenia”; still, the inclusion of a piece by a band whose name translates to “collapsing new buildings” on a program with a 9/11 memorial by composer Michael Gordon is bound to provide a different kind of controversy. Such unorthodox concert pairings have led the Kronos Quartet to become the one string quartet that almost anybody can name—at a time when classical music is often perceived as stuffy, academic, and unavailable to the general public. With a range that stretches from string interpretations of Hendrix to heady explorations of early music to Bollywood film song, the members of Kronos have expertly used their performances to find common themes among dissimilar and often unfamiliar genres. In the case of this concert—which also includes works by Rahul Dev Berman—Kronos will no doubt continue to deconstruct the audiences’ notion of what a string quartet can do. Kronos Quartet performs Sunday, Oct. 22, at 7 p.m. at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium, 730 21st St. NW. $25–$35. (202) 397-7328. (Aaron Leitko)

	The Slits perform with the Apes and Eyes of the Killer Robot Sunday, Nov. 5 at the Black Cat
	Guy Clark performs with Slaid Cleaves Friday, Oct. 20, at 7:30 p.m. at the Birchmere
	The Washington National Opera's Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Gianni Schicchi run from Sept. 25 to Oct. 7 at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House
	Leo Kottke performs Sunday, Oct. 5, at the National Museum of Natural History's Baird Auditorium
	Vusi Mahlasela performs Sunday, Nov. 12, at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium in conjunction with "Acoustic Africa"