A star turn might seem inevitable with Luciano Berio's Folk Songs, and mezzo Claire Nash did just that with the Karlheinz Company.
All 11 songs were impeccably characterised. Nash caught the wistful innocence of the American pieces, yet fired off the tongue-twisting Ballo with the precision of a musical marksman.
Hands on hips, she was the Sicilian fishwife of A la femminisca and the closing Azerbaijan Love Song was a shot of A-class adrenalin.
An ensemble of seven players brought Berio's colours to play, with violist Marcelle Barnes and flautist Alisa Willis making the most of their opportunities.
Kim Maree's Aureus presented a mesmerising video of what looked like volcanic activity brewing in a restless sand bank, accompanied by atmospheric soundscape.
John Elmsly's Nocturne proved a night piece to remember. Andrew Uren's bass clarinet conjured up elegantly phrased lines against the fluttering sounds of Thailand and quirky, live percussion, occasionally sounding like a gentle flowerpot and tin can gamelan.
Uren illuminated Andari Anggamulia's Tempo rubato a velocissimo from within, drawing sounds out of the ether and extending them imperceptibly to the edge of timbral anxiety.
Violinist Vanessa Tam impressed with a spirited rendition of Robin Toan's Violaceous, revealing a more intimate and experimental side to the composer who wrote the spectacular Tua-mata-uenga for this year's NZSO NYO.
Stephen Matthews' The Chosen One offered the pleasure of Vivien Lee and Binna Jang on two Steinways. Effectively written and crisply delivered, the composer's duelling personalities seemed to echo the Florestan and Eusebius of Schumann's imagination.
The New Zealand Trio ended the evening with the tremulous wonders of Samuel Holloway's Stapes. There was high drama in Sarah Watkins' provocative trilling and Ashley Brown's acerbic cello outbursts.
But here is a young composer adept in that twilight between sound and silence, most effectively in passages where bows and fingers seemed to be controlled by the whims of a capricious ouija board.
What: The Karlheinz Company
Where and when: University Music Theatre, Saturday
