A warm ambience suffused the City Hall theatre on Wednesday evening, when the Marian Anderson String Quartet celebrated the Americas with a programme of primarily 20th century works.Eschewing the traditional formal black for West African-inspired outfits in rich earth tones, and under lighting that warmed the wood of their instruments to a golden glow, the four women welcomed the audience into their performance circle in a number of ways.Brief introductions to each of the pieces they played enhanced the audience's appreciation of music which might not have been familiar to all. In one particular case, in introducing Coleridge Taylor Perkinson's ‘String Quartet No. 1', based on the Negro spiritual ‘Calvary', viola player Diedra Lawrence, in a rich alto, led the audience in singing the chorus of the spiritual so that they might recognise the melody when it appeared ‘in all its glory' in the fourth movement.A ‘Q and A' session just before the intermission invited the audience further into their intimate circle. Prompted by a question from the audience, each musician in turn described how they came to form a relationship with their instrument. For some it was an “aha” moment, for others, a more gradual appreciation. Cellist Prudence McDaniel described how, at the age of eight and in her first lesson, she accidentally discovered that her cello had a voice of its own. Since then, she continued, “we have had many lovely conversations, and it never gets boring”.Second violinist Nicole Cherry gave an insight into the special bond between ensemble players that allows them to produce such beauty for the enjoyment of others.And beauty they did produce.The programme opened with William Grant Still's ‘Dances of Panama', a piece that displayed the composer's love of community and culture. Based on traditional folk tunes collected by Elizabeth Waldo, the composition in four movements was a first for its time, one of many firsts for the ‘dean of African-American composers'. There is an unusual quality to the music with the musicians knocking on their instruments to approximate the sounds of native instruments. A touch of Spanish-Caribbean colour infuses the four movements, at times evoking the slow, leisurely stroll of senoritas along tree-lined squares, at others intense, energetic dances with African roots.Astor Piazzola's ‘Four for Tango', with its brooding, intense opening bars, continued the theme of experimental sound, with percussive elements, shrill glissandi and dissonance conveying passion almost ferocious in its intensity.The third selection was the fourth movement of Perkinson's work already mentioned, a more melodic piece that fused classical with jazz and evoked a melancholic mood.Following the intermission, and bringing an enjoyable evening to a climax was Antonin Dvorak's ‘String Quartet No. 12', nicknamed the ‘American'. One of the composer's most popular pieces, it interweaves a variety of ‘sounds out of American soil' from the repetitive rumble of a train running across the plains to Appalachian folk tunes and Native American pipes.To borrow a phrase of Ms Lawrence, who provided the ‘inside scoop' on Dvorak's work, the evening was in essence, “just good music” played skilfully and beautifully by four women taking immense pleasure from what they were doing, and sharing that pleasure with others.