Classical review: Tales from the Forbidden City, Raye Freedman Arts Centre

The Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra with the NZ String Quartet and Jack Body.

The Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra's brief 2011 visit left one eager for more of the virtuoso Chinese ensemble.

Last night, through the tireless advocacy of Jack Body with the touring support of Chamber Music New Zealand, the Beijing musicians and the New Zealand String Quartet, transported their Wellington Arts Festival programme north.

Seven pieces found their own musical meeting-places between East and West and, in the case of the Chinese composers, a palpable connection with cultural roots.

Calling on all the players, Zou Hang's Shi Bian Wu Huas bristled with brightness. It set off with a miniature jam session, progressing to foot-stomping and a slap-'n'-whack percussive finale.

Countertenor Xiao Ma caught the wry sentimentality of Gao Weijie's Three Songs of Yuan Qu, balancing fervour and a tinge of irony. The final melt of liquid-toned vibes, lush strings and mandolin-like pipa was scrumptious.

Gao Ping's clumsily-titled The Four Not-Alike was a quirky concerto, setting a grand piano in a Chinese temple garden. The composer/soloist drummed his instrument's case and gave us his familiar, idiosyncratic vocalizing.

The musical journey from West to East gained substance from his special knowledge of both, especially in the second movement's night-music nod to Bartok.

Of the New Zealand composers, Jack Body's Beat came with lashings of atmosphere from the vivid folk recordings behind his ensemble. These were fascinating in themselves, doubly so when the Jingpo singers wove their worksong through the clangorous band.

There was a certain interiority to the sonic beauties of Dylan Lardelli's Secrets, listening to the qin, particularly after two lively Chimaera by Tabea Squire.

The second of these was a scurrying cat-and-mouse game between violinist Douglas Beilman and the brilliant Yang Jing on pipa.

The evening ended with Michael Norris and David Downes' Inner Phases.

Downes' video was a spellbinding black-and-white trip through various landscapes, with flurrying fish and fowl, and recurrent images of water. Accompanying the film, Norris' tightly-written score, penned with a keen ear for the implications of language and colour, was slightly upstaged by the images that it had inspired.