ALISON CROOSE Twentieth century music clearly is not the choice of many City of London Sinfonia supporters, as reflected by a smaller audience drawn by an innovative and adventurous programme.

ALISON CROOSE

Twentieth century music clearly is not the choice of many City of London Sinfonia supporters, as reflected by a smaller audience drawn to King's Lynn Corn Exchange by an innovative and adventurous programme.

But education is one facet of musical residencies and this was an opportunity to lend an ear to a lesser-known repertoire. It was an imaginative programme on the theme of the world of nature, producing a veritable menagerie of music.

The Creation of the World, by the 20th century composer Darius Milhaud, with its strong jazz influence, proved a fitting introduction.

Young composer Roxanna Panufnik took her bow after a performance of her latest work, The Crocodile and the Monkey, from Vikram Seth's Beastly Tales. Unfortunately the dramatic and expressive vocal range of soprano Patricia Rozario was often subsumed by the descriptive music.

One sensed the audience preferred the more traditional style of Ottorino Respighi's suite, The Birds, and the more familiar On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring and Summer Night on the River by Delius.

Ravel's Mother Goose suite concluded a programme which was superbly performed by the orchestra under the baton of charismatic conductor Nicolae Moldoveanu.