In the wake of three memorable Town Hall orchestral concerts featuring repertoire no more recent than 1940, Auckland Chamber Orchestra's Sunday programme reassured us that today's composers are alive, well and writing for classical big bands.
ACO's music director Peter Scholes had not only searched out Anna Clyne's 2009 Within Her Arms and Unsuk Chin's 2013 Graffiti, but placed them on either side of Hindemith's rarely heard Kammermusik No 2.
This 1924 Piano Concerto was set off like a firecracker by the flamboyantly capable Henry Wong Doe, leading the hip players around him on a frisky game of musical tag.
![Henry Wong Doe. Photo / Rob Stoelker](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/WZNKLZZEQHIMKKAT6QDJTRRBUY.jpg?auth=f2f52c3d7d6d5f14e2153913021e3bedff9680d444cf59135146ef27fb7f925e&width=16&height=11&quality=70&smart=true)
While energies never let up on the musicians' part, Hindemith's harmonically spicy bonhomie did lose some of its fizz by the finale. However, we had been amply rewarded by a bittersweet slow movement, not to mention a devilishly witty scherzo that might have given Poulenc and his Parisian bon vivants cause for envy.