The second programme in this year’s West End Micro Music Festival had its first performance at Redeemer Lutheran on Friday night.  It was a mix of contemporary instrumental and vocal works with some unusual Hildegard von Bingen and some interesting lighting (Billy Wong) and staging.

First up was a set for Lenny Ranallo on electric guitar and soprano Danika Lorèn wrapped in a sheet.  It was certainly different, and surprisingly effective, to hear von Bingen on electric guitar.  This was followed by Danika singing Sofia Gubaidulina’s Aus den Visionen der Hildegard von Bingen with electronic backing.  This sets short fragments of german text and was presented with great precision.

Next was Cassandra Miller’s Perfect Offering.  This is scored for chamber ensemble (violins – Julia Mirzoev, David Baik; viola – Hezekiah Leung, cello – Peter Eom, flutes – Sara Constant, clarinets – Brad Cherwin, piano – Joonchung Cho with Simon Rivard conducting). It’s based on a peal of bells from a convent in France and is rather beautiful in a minimalist sort of way as you might expect fro something based on bells.

After the interval we got Kati Agocs’ (who was in the audience) Voices of the Immaculate.  This is a work for vocalist (Reilly Nelson) and small ensemble.  It sets fragments of text from Revelations interspersed with the rather harrowing testimony of survivors of child sexual abuse by the clergy.  In places it’s pretty dense and complex but at others the vocal line in particular has a beautiful simplicity.  I was concentrating so heard on the vocal writing and Reilly’s performance that I probably missed most of the subtleties in the instrumental writing.  Reilly’s performance though was beautiful and brave.  It must be very tough emotionally to sing the piece and she managed wonderfully.  Deeply moving.

Lenny played us out with an arrangement of von Bingen’s O choruscans stellarum with Reilly and Danika as additional decoration.

It’s been a pretty good week for crazy contemporary vocals with this and Barbara Hannigan on Thursday.  The WEMMF programme is being repeated tonight (Saturday).