Concert review: 175 East, Kenneth Myers Centre

175 East in action. Photo / Supplied

Revisiting Dylan Lardelli's bas seven years after premiering the piece, 175 East confirmed why it is one of our top contemporary ensembles.

The musicianship of Ingrid Culliford, Gretchen La Roche, Andrew Uren and Kathryn Hebley remains peerless, with conductor Hamish McKeich an expert in the field.

The intricate woodwind interplay and Hebley's arresting cello still caught the ear as they did in 2004, but this time Lardelli's almost sculptural manipulation of harmonic density seemed to bring a new perspective into play.

There were other revivals on the programme, from the pared-down trio of Chris Watson's reconstituted Recrudesce, with a real wit in its litheness, to the clustering complexities of Samuel Holloway's 2005 Incus, complete with a teasingly elusive Bach chorale.

Flautist Culliford pitched the gentlest multiphonics against the chiming tape of Ross Harris's 1986 Fluchtig.

The international offering was Jennifer Walshe's he was she was. But were we distracted from appreciating the beautiful sounds of matches struck and paper torn by the jokey recitations about guys who never ate salad and girls who only shaved up to their knees?
The rest of the concert brought us up to date at home. Chris Cree Brown's prize-winning Inner Bellow, had La Roche dismantling and reconstituting her clarinet on stage, weaving her often disarmingly melodic lines against some ravishing electronic backdrops.

La Roche was joined by Uren in Michael Williams' reposeful May My Shadow Never Depart, complete with whispered Buddhist prayer, electronically looped by the composer into a meditative sonic wall.

Life itself was the issue of Eve de Castro-Robinson's Hale, a tremendously moving tribute to the composer's late mother.

Spurred on by the text "Dum spiro spero" (While I breathe I hope), the five musicians inhaled and exhaled, their breathing transported into the realm of music by subtle shading and permutation.

At one point Uren's contrabass clarinet snaked dramatically upwards while his colleagues whispered "whakata" (breath) but Tim Sutton's bass trombone was the eloquent celebrant.

Midway, Sutton dispensed a dreamy, nostalgic trombone croon, leading the group from hushed sibilants and pulsating chords to a massive, cathartic climax.

The tape component, always present and compellingly stark when the composer had read her mother's poetry, now brought release in the comfort of tolling bells and eternal verity of birdsong.

What: 175 East
Where: Kenneth Myers Centre

- Herald online