I trekked back up to Constellation with some ill-formed idea that an avant-garde string quartet would be something to listen to on a Saturday night. I guess I was hoping for something electric, like Fourplay, but instead got something more like the Brodsky Quartet with an American poet and an American punk subbed in for Elvis Costello. It was packed, I think with music students and faculty from the Uni of Chicago. The initial Stravinsky (Concertino) went over OK, after two Founders stouts that the barmaid preferred to their porter. The interstitial Glass (Quartet No. 2 "Company") was missing its accompanying Beckett. Dave Reminick is the punk, and his The Ancestral Mousetrap (bringing a dead man back to life and oh my god, I'll never get home by Russell Edson bringing the words) was solidly in the Brodsky Quartet mode. Their assorted mobile miniatures were micro compositions by various American composers on the order of 1-40s for mobile phone events (ringtones, etc.). Most were twee, by which I mean that they necessarily traded on musical cliché. I think I enjoyed Dvořák's Quartet F major, op. 96, "American" (ii. lento) the most. They closed with Beethoven's Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 v. allegro appassionato-presto, after what they said was their customary shot.
I had dinner at Lee's Chow Mein at Western and Diversey beforehand. They got the ambience right, I'll give them that much.