Earplay, a San Francisco based ensemble dedicated to new chamber music, kicked off its 25th season at Herbst Theatre this past Monday with a program entitled Ear and There. Their current season is meant to showcase composers who have a connection to the Bay Area. As such, the bill included works by two local composers who also were available to give a little pre-concert talk.

The evening began with a piece by Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez called and of course Henry the horse, an homage to The Beatles’ Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite. The four movements are meant to depict four contemporary art pieces, presumably making up a sort of modern day circus. Genghis is a reference to a robot built by Rodney Brooks, Mandala Tequila an installation piece by Ivan Puig, Machine with Artichoke the creations of Arthur Ganson, and Things that Go refers to a film by Peter Fischli and David Weiss. While the idea behind this work sounds quirky enough to inspire some raucous sonic adventures, the theme just gets lost. The movements don’t feel interconnected nor do they feel like completely fleshed out ideas. The notable exception to the latter problem is Mandala Tequila, its seemingly random assortment of pitches creating an atmosphere of wonder and melancholy.

Sam Nichols work, Unnamed Jr., was performed next with great amounts of skill but little in the way of memorable moments. This piece is meant to be, in the composers words, “a holding pen for all of the melodic, harmonic, textural, gestural and dramatic ideas”, for an opera he has been working on. Unfortunately, that’s sort of what it feels like too, a bunch of thoughts that haven’t been refined into something affecting. Hopefully this will no longer be the case by the time the opera is finished.

Next was Kaija Saariaho’s piece, Je sens un deuxieme coeur (I feel a second heart) which was easily the highlight of the night for me. This felt like a cohesive work from the very first to the very last notes. The ensemble seemed completely in tune with Saariaho’s sense of texture as well as dramatic intent regardless of the fact that it was easy to forget that it was supposed to depict the relationship between a mother and her unborn child. Of particular note was the intensity level of cellist Thalia Moore who appeared to be completely consumed with ferocious purpose. Placing this piece in the middle of the program placed the bar high for the rest of the night.

A, relatively, smaller work by Seymour Shifrin for four-hand piano entitled The Modern Temper eased the mood a bit, even with its heavy use dissonance. Written in 1959, this piece seemed a bit out of place due to its age as well as the fact that the others used a good portion of the ensemble. Shifrin’s music is exactly what one would expect from a modernist piece of the ’50s. Not that it was bad or without merit, it just wasn’t new. It also wasn’t unique enough to stand out amongst its peers of that era. An odd choice for a group whose mission is to focus on new music but ‘focus’ doesn’t necessitate exclusivity and, in the classical world, 50 year old music is generally considered new still.

The night ended with Bruce Christian Bennett’s From the Ashes, commissioned by Earplay. This was a 23 minute romp through the breakdown and creation of harmonies based on frequency modulation synthesis akin to the myth of the Phoenix. While that may sound like an overly scientific method of conjuring a highly poetic image, Bennett manages to not get lost in the theory so much that he loses sight of the point. There were truly some inspired moments during this performance but also some pitfalls. For one, the shifts between different instrument combinations and textural ideas didn’t always feel natural. Once one was brought into a new section, it was easy to forget this fault and become immersed in the moment again though. This piece also used the largest portion of the Earplay ensemble. Guest artist Chris Froh was even brought in to perform percussion which included a solo in the middle of the work, played with technical precision.

Throughout the night, the Earplay ensemble continued to dazzle me with their keen sense of musicianship. They took on some difficult music and managed, presumably, to draw as much emotional force out of it as there was to be found.