KEY POINTS:
The Australian Art Orchestra is one of the jewels in AK07's crown, yet its first two concerts drew disappointing audiences.
On Friday, Ruby's Story featured Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach in what was essentially a song-cycle tracing Hunter's life from billabong birth through her "stolen childhood" to meeting Roach and creating a new life for herself.
The Aboriginal singers were loaded with charisma - Roach, tall and lean, with an affecting Sam Cooke vocal shudder, and Hunter, diminutive and dark of voice with a disarmingly direct manner.
But both were burdened with a muddy sound mix that had one straining to decipher lyrics.
Paul Grabowsky's arrangements of what were essentially simple ballads sometimes emphasised an over-dependence on American gospel and spiritual models. Roach's celebrated Take the Children Away was one that suffered least.
Yet, many instrumental touches were so delightful, from duelling drums in Hunter's catchy Daisy Chains, String Games and Knucklebones to bass clarinet and trumpet setting the atmosphere for Down City Streets.
Hunter and Roach had less to do in Saturday's Passion, the orchestra's tribute to Bach's St Matthew Passion, offering shortish songs loosely based on Bach Chorales.
Ironically, this virtuoso performance from the full 19-piece band drew an even smaller audience than the previous night.
The original Bach was sometimes elusive. He was elaborately toasted in Grabowsky's opening Come Ye Daughters and in John Rodgers' final take on the well-known In Tears of Grief, taken to Spain over Rodgers' guitar.
Rodgers, who handled violin for most of the time, was not the only band member to demonstrate his instrumental versatility.
Niko Schauble's Crucified was perhaps the high point, setting off with a cool sax duet which flowed into sumptuous reed and brass textures.
At one point violinist Rodgers floated a cadenza over weeping sax chords that seemed to have strayed from Debussy, and the piece attained its spiritual resolution when James Greening's trombone revealed the soul in Bach's great Passion Chorale.
Solos were many and expertly handled, although an extended, moody tenor sax turn from Jamie Oehlers was an edge-of-the-seater.
Projects such as this depend on a certain startle factor, from the wide stylistic discrepancies that they throw up.
Here, we had everything from free-blowing Don Ellis trumpet and tape chatter to the band humming the Passion Chorale against Grabowsky's smooth piano stylings.
For me, it was most gripping when idioms stayed left of centre.
All in all, this was a rare chance to hear a top-class ensemble, playing music that had few barriers and took fewer prisoners. Too many Aucklanders missed it.
Review
* What: Ruby's Story/Passion
* Where: Town Hall Concert Chamber
* Reviewer: William Dart
