h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On Friday evening I went to Liberty Hall to hear a concert of new American music played by The Crash Ensemble http://www.crashensemble.com/

My son plays bass in the group, which is flexible in size but this time included flute, clarinet, trombone, violin, viola, cello, bass, electric guitar, piano and percussion, with a conductor for the bigger pieces. They have been together now for fourteen years; they hit the ground running in 1997 and have been improving ever since.

They played pieces by five composers I had never heard of: Sean Friar, Ken Ueno, Timothy Andres, Missy Mazzoli and Nico Muhly. They did three pieces by Muhly, including a world premiere of a piece called 'Drones, Variations, Ornaments' which they (The Crash Ensemble) had commissioned. It was much more engaging than the title would lead you to expect, and was the only piece to use the entire cast.

The audience took to it, particularly after an onstage interview between the composer and Donncha Dennehy, the director of the Crash. They both just hit a funnybone, refusing to be pompous; they ended up like a comedy act and the audience responded with hoots of laughter. But despite the light touch, the group is a model of mutual respect, and a strange consequence of that is that the audience are mesmerised into profound attention even while the stage engineer is setting up their mikes. Everything is amplified; that is an essential element of the performance, and the engineer, Jimmy Eadie, got a beautifully balanced and unified sound. My son's bass had both a contact mike attached and a large condenser mike out in front. Sometimes the sound is big, but often it is gentle; one composer wrote in his programme note "I sought to create delicate textures that played against the incipient power of amplification and distortion."

Warm applause at the end of the last piece, the premiere; the entire group was clapped back on stage not once but twice.