New is the order of the day, and that new can range from the startling to the inconsequential. The Kronos does not guarantee profundity. It just likes to keep the conversation going. Concerts at Zankel Hall on Friday and Saturday (a third called "Notes From Azerbaijan" was yesterday) drew the kinds of listeners the quartet has cultivated over the years — people who like their art with social consciousness, ethnic relevance and a few surprises. Twelve-toners and intellectual provocateurs beware: this is not the music for you.

There were three pieces on Friday. Saturday's concert was a kind of talk show with musical interludes. Called "Alternative Radio — Music in a Time of War," it put the broadcast host David Barsamian and the historian Howard Zinn at one side of the stage with the musicians playing in between the words.

Art as a civilizing and perhaps unifying force was the theme, with music from the Far East, the distant North and Africa, all filtered through Kronos sensibility and creating a we-are-the-world sentiment. There were set pieces like "It Raged" from Scott Johnson's "How It Happens" with I. F. Stone's recorded voice as underpinning. There was also Walter Kitundu's "Cerulean Sweet II," which added the composer's multipurpose phonoharp to the quartet sound to form a kind of gentle passacaglia of repetitive phrases.

Mr. Zinn and Mr. Barsamian affirmed that war, dictatorship, racism, censorship, President Bush and general inhumanity are wrong. One could find little to argue against, but neither was there much new ground covered. Still, it was nice to be reminded.