COMPOSERS: Music of Central Asia
LABELS: Smithsonian Folkways
WORKS: Music of Central Asia, Vol. 8
PERFORMER: Kronos Quartet
CATALOGUE NO: SFW CD 40527
Meanwhile in Rainbow Qasimov and his daughter Fargana meld their voices with the sound of the Kronos Quartet for a work by the Afghan rebab maestro Homayun Sakhi. In contrast, the Kronos’s collaboration with a composer in Rainbow sounds more conventional, efficiently uniting East and West but not in a very revelatory way. When Qasimov père et fille take control for five traditional Azerbaijani songs, the quartet interweaves its Western sound to create a brilliantly successful fusion. Michael Church