Brad Mehldau and Chris Thile team up for elegant, beautiful music

Brad Mehldau and Chris Thile both play music in which technical virtuosity is front-and-center. The former is a jazz pianist, easily the most influential of his generation; the latter, an innovator of the bluegrass mandolin who won a MacArthur "genius" award last year. So their duo performance Friday night at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center was an achievement in itself. Their complex work translated to plain-faced beauty: simple, direct and exquisite.