On Friday, at the Kenneth Myers Centre, Holloway's players treat us to Kiwi music from Chris Cree Brown and Ross Harris to Chris Watson, Dylan Lardelli and Michael Williams, as well as a 2005 trio by Holloway himself.
Holloway concedes that it can be quite a trip coming to terms with 175 East music, but rewards are assured. Advice is simple. "Let go of your preconceptions as to what music should be and do, and listen with an open mind and open ears."
Hamilton composer Michael Williams, whose opera The Prodigal Child toured the country a decade ago, is thrilled to have one of his compositions played by a group he has long admired for "its unflinching belief in contemporary New Zealand music, its eclectic mix of instruments and calibre of its players".
The focus in Williams' May My Shadow Never Depart is on two clarinets, played by Gretchen La Roche and Andrew Uren with an electronic component "creating a sonic shadow that fits in with the Buddhist idea central to the piece", Williams explains. "Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves."
One offering on Friday's line-up is a New Zealand and world premiere.
Earlier this year, it seemed as if Eve de Castro-Robinson might fulfill her 175 East commission with a trombone concerto, but the unexpected passing of her mother in August modified plans somewhat.
Her evocative quintet, Hale, grows out of a recorded voice speaking the words :"Dum spiro spero" (While I breath I hope) making the score "more personal and ritualistic," she tells me. "It has little to do with musical argument, but is a work that holds you in a singular sonic grip for its entirety."
De Castro-Robinson admits that it is a "sombre sort of piece. It's just thinking about breathing and time and movement through life." The image is extended throughout the instruments; she characterizes the cello as "the heartbeat, the clock keeping time."
A bass trombone playing a reminiscence of Flanagan and Allen's Hometown, one of her mother's favourite songs, is "the only melodic content, but there are a lot of breathing and intoning sounds that give it an incantatory, meditative atmosphere".
The electronic tape which provides a backdrop for the musicians "casts sonic and nostalgic textural halos," ranging from a Bach rehearsal overheard during a recent residency in Florida to the pealing of Ponsonby church bells and birdsong.
She herself reads some of her mother's poems on the tape - her 1997 trio, a pink-lit phase, took its title from one. "I wanted to make it more personal for myself," is her explanation.
For just a moment, she wonders whether it will all translate over to the wider audience. But any doubts are only momentary.
"Filmmakers and novelists must worry about this," she points out, "but usually the more personal it is, the better."
What: 175 East
Where and when: Kenneth Myers Centre, 74 Shortland St, Friday at 8.30pm
