The Kronos Quartet, which wowed an audience Tuesday night at Fresno State as part of CSU Summer Arts, is not your great-great-grandmother's string quartet. No staid Sunday afternoon music recitals or Victorian-upholstered private garden parties here. Mozart and Schumann? Let them get in line behind John Adams, Clint Mansell and a bevy of international composers whose names you might trip over and whose music speaks of a world view, not just a Western one.

Sitting on a square, slightly raised platform in the John Wright Theatre and flanked by floor-level stage lights, a scattering of exotic stringed instruments and giant speakers, the quartet exuded a sort of hip, relaxed modernity. Audiences have experienced the Kronos Quartet in literally thousands of concerts over the past 30 years in some of the world's great venues, but it's hard to imagine a more intimate space than the John Wright to experience this group's potent personality.

The quartet, led on stage by founder David Harrington, played a variety of multicultural pieces, starting off with an achingly titled tune from Iraq called "Oh Mother, The Handsome Man Tortures Me" ("We think it's a love story," Harrington said), and progressing through pieces from Swedish, Indian, American, Australian and Serbian composers.

My favorite of the bunch was a brilliant performance of an Icelandic piece titled "Flugufrelsarinn (The Fly Freer)." Written by the group Sigur Ros, the song was moody, driving and resonant. Another top contender for me was J.G.'s Thirlwell's "Nomatophobis." I had an image while listening to it -- now this is going to sound weird, but it's really what flashed through my mind -- of a cat climbing an impossibly tall tree, going ever higher, not looking down, not caring how it's going to get back to the ground, just a relentless climb that becomes ever more delicate because of the thinning branches. There's an amazing little cello flutter in the song that sounds like some sort of insect, and even it flies away, and you're left at the tippy-top of this amazing tree all alone. (OK, enough random mental music associations.)

Overall, the audience loved it: two encores, multiple standing ovations, a veritable buzz in the theater. The level of musical proficiency was so great that even the hardest-to-digest atonal moments took on a whole deeper impact simply because the talent was so extreme. Gracious and generous with their time, the four Kronos players obviously thrive in a learning environment.