We had not come to the Civic Theatre to hear Haydn and Mozart from Kronos Quartet; in partnership with pipa virtuoso Wu Man, the Americans were offering a rare mingling of music and magic.
The hushed enchantment of Tan Dun's 1994 Ghost Opera weaves the ancient mysteries of the composer's
homeland into a poetic ritual that incorporates the music of Bach at its most yearning and words of Shakespeare that pre-empt the existential.
The musicians pitted the innocence of folk music against the elemental sounds of stone, metal and water. When the brilliant Wu's pipa was at its most mandolin-like, it was not difficult to imagine that some ghostly bluegrass had strayed into the Chinese hinterland.
After interval came the 2009 A Chinese Home, a collaboration between Kronos leader, David Harrington, Wu Man and the charismatic Chen Shi-Zheng, responsible for the visual design.
This 52-minute journey through Chinese history played out in front of a carefully curated video stream, with the musicians' costumes graduating from old-style ceremonial robes through Mao jackets to modern-day business suits.
