Auckland Choral at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland

While we admired the elegant art nouveau peacock on the programme cover, conductor David Hamilton spoke of an eclectic mix that he felt we would enjoy. And so it was. Auckland Choral whisked us from Constant Lambert's Rio Grande through to Haydn's Nelson Mass, with a healthy line-up of Kiwi composers in between.

If Hamilton showed a real feeling for Lambert's jazz-soaked choral fantasia, St Matthew's Chamber Orchestra seemed altogether less hip and co-ordinated.

The choristers, too, could have allowed a little more blood to flow in the veins of this affectionate 1927 spoof of the Great English Choral Tradition.

Young soloists were welcome compensation. Fei Ren tackled the piano part brilliantly like the mini-concerto it is, while mezzo Sarah McOnie sang of Brazilian enchantment with sumptuous tone and unerring breath control.

On the home front, the layered beauties of Jenny McLeod's reflective Hymn for the Lady were dampened by Holy Trinity's acoustics.

Graham Parsons' Sing a New Song to the Lord, the winner of AC's recent composers' competition, was strong on beefy choral effects but a tad old-fashioned.

The best of the locals was David Hamilton's Night Visions, five settings in which tunefulness was the order of the evening.

There may have been a little too much tinkling on piano, harp and glockenspiel, but this combination gave a Danny Elfman zing to the macabre fourth vision, Dance of the Thirteen Skeletons.

Soprano Morag Atchison gave a relished her shivery descants during the skeleton's final dance. Hamilton's astute writing revealed Auckland Choral at its most confident, thrillingly so in The Middle of the Night.

Haydn's Nelson Mass is a demanding work and strain showed in choir, orchestra and soloists. Atchison sometimes worked too hard; Jack Bourke's full-voiced tenor and Graham OBrien's more cautious bass were not well-matched. But McOnie, a reserved presence for much of the Mass, shone in the Agnus Dei.

Although fugal writing was sometimes stressed, there was a real glow to the chords of the Sanctus and the choristers made the most of their miserere nobis interjections.