Review: Auckland Chamber Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall

Musical director Peter Scholes teased the audience with the thought that there may not be such a thing as a New Zealand sound. Photo / Supplied

Is there a New Zealand sound?" Peter Scholes asked, clarinet in hand, priming punters at Auckland Chamber Orchestra's Wax Lyrical concert.

Concluding that there wasn't and that he was excited by that thought, the ACO's musical director joined his ensemble, and conductor James Gardner introduced the first of the evening's seven contemporary works.

Claire Scholes' Schubert's Finished could have been a tastier appetiser, a deconstruction that cried out for more sense of outrage than a winsome minor key take on "Heidenroslein" could provide.

Robin Toan's Barcelona Postcards was more sharply fashioned. Evocative scoring caught the flittering of aquarium fish while trills teetered on Gaudi spires. Stravinsky may even have been tempted to join in one of two waltzes delivered with gusto.

Anthony Young's Firmament was a self-described piece of musical sky-gazing yet this wind quintet, beautifully played, bore the fatal signs of overworking, obsessive metre changes failing to disguise a certain minimalist inertia.

It is obviously too easy to lump Karlo Margetic in with the fast and furious brigade of composers. His Svitac was reflective in spirit, Peter Scholes' eloquent clarinet wafting over undulating strings, harp and piano. Occasionally stirring up klezmerish echoes, the glow-worms of its title were at their most luminescent in Scholes' flickering cadenza work.

After interval, Samuel Holloway's Strange Loops was high-class hypnosis as the players skirted around the gravitational pull of a major triad, not to mention the tonal lure of an electronic organ, benefiting from Gardner's skill and experience in balancing sotto voce dynamics.

Dylan Lardelli's Four Fragments won the Wellington composer an award at the 2003 Asian Composers League. It was not hard to see why in this virtuoso account of a score that nods to Brahms and Boulez with its rushes, clusters and nervy crescendos.

Chris Gendall's Wax Lyrical had given the evening its title, the brainchild of a composer who entertains while he challenges. The players, including some dramatically charged strings, took to his ingenious rhythms, sustaining the momentum until the final quaver's-breath swoop from triple forte to triple piano.