Other musical responses to light included Eric Whitacre's Lux Aurumque, in which resonant harmonies frayed into shimmering haze, and the almost pointillistic scat textures of Mason Bates' Observer in the Magellanic Cloud.
More conservative music would come later, with Bob Chilcott's Canticles of Light stunningly delivered but a banal piece of writing, its laboriously paced three movements separated by sententious chimes.
At the end of the concert, the singers enjoyed David Hamilton's Ecce Beatam Lucem, a hearty extrovert piece in a genre that this New Zealand composer does so well.
A highlight for me was Murray Schafer's 1969 Epitaph for Moonlight, a freeform colouristic adventure, responding to onomatopoeic words for moonlight (my favourites were "malooma" and "sheelesk").
For five enchanted minutes, conductor David Squire seemed to be a painter in sound, his gestures bringing forth luscious sweeps, cries and sighs.
The other high point was specially commissioned Waerenga-a-Hika by Tuirina Wehi, effortlessly combining the jive of kapa haka with a stirring melody that Puccini would have been proud to have written.
What: Ata Reira
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Wednesday
Reviewer: William Dart