Free Kronos Quartet concert in Pecaut Square is what music under an open sky is all about

Behind-the-stage view of the Kronos Quartet on Sunday night in David Pecaut Square. Photo: John Terauds

CBC Radio 2 host Laurie Brown and I were co-hosts of last night's free Luminato concert in David Pecaut Square. The Kronos Quartet -- in residence for much of the 10-day festival this year -- presented a free concert that was like a tasting menu of their global-fusion music.

They performed with the same intense focus and commitment as they would for a paid concert. I kept looking out at the crowd of a couple of thousand people from behind the open-air stage. Each listener's attention was as rapt as the performers' -- for music that is anything but tried-and-true tonal stuff.

And there was Canadian content, in a revised version of Death to Kosmische, a nicely spun-out, ghostly work by Montreal composer Nicole Lizée, premiered by Kronos earlier this year.

Even on a chilly, breezy, ovrcast night, the atmosphere in the festival's main square captured that special magic that open-air concerts are all about.

I felt privileged to be, figuratively, in the street and, literally, surrounded by my city and people and all their attendant noises, and feel like I was witnessing something memorable. Even Toronto Symphony music director Peter Oundjian and his daughter Lara were there in the audience to enjoy the experience.

This is what makes Luminato special.

There's plenty more free entertainment coming to the Festival Stage.