ALISON CROOSE Festival-goers were offered the opportunity to hear music outside the popular and traditional repertoire performed by a quartet of young musicians dedicated to modern music.

ALISON CROOSE

Festival-goers were offered the opportunity to hear music outside the popular and traditional repertoire performed by a quartet of young musicians dedicated to modern music.

A similar concert last year attracted an enthusiastic audience which multiplied several fold when the consort returned.

Interest was heightened by festival artistic director Ambrose Miller, who opened the event by introducing two featured composers who talked about their musical backgrounds and music with explanatory illustrations of the works about to be played.

They were from contrasting backgrounds – Mihailo Trandafilovski from Macedonia, with its folk music tradition, and David Bessell, who used to work in the pop music business.

Particularly novel in Bessell's piece was the unusual playing technique required of the clarinettist and the application of two washing-up brushes to the strings inside the piano.

More traditional music by Arthur Bliss and William Walton was a welcome contrast, and less demanding than most of the programme which taxed both the ears and the brain.

But the Town Hall audience clearly appreciated the undoubted musical talents of the quartet playing under the direction of Sarah Thurlow.