NCH, Dublin

Bill Campbell

– Weather Report.

Brian Irvine– Montana Strange.

The Horizons series ended with a memorable, invigorating concert devoted to music by two Belfast-born composers. Bill Campbell's Weather Reportis a bracing, 10-minute piece for full orchestra. Written as a tribute to a jazz fusion band, it is itself a fusion of contrasts, with associations as diverse as Ligeti's dense string clusters, big band, jazz drum-kit – and more. Campbell's control of proportion, and his knack of feeding ideas into the texture, made diversity seem almost cogent.

Diversity is even more extravagant in Brian Irvine's Montana Strange. Inspired by the films of David Lynch, it is "a dream world filled with surreal encounters, shapes and hidden secrets. . . an adventure." Quite! You are always wondering what might happen next.

The scoring is for full orchestra, a separate small ensemble that includes electronics, and saxophone soloist. The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Gavin Maloney, the Brian Irvine Ensemble was directed by the composer, and the saxophonist was the astonishing Paul Dunmall.

This 40-minute piece lives perpetually on the edge. One minute it’s charged with unbridled energy, the next Dunmall is improvising with mighty plaintiveness; and in the well-calculated moments of peace, a disturbing undercurrent waits to emerge.

It’s joyously irreverent, written by a composer who is evidently a performing musician. The small ensemble doesn’t just play – it shouts, sings, jumps up and down. Paul Dunmall’s acute listening means that the relationship between improvisatatory music and written-out music has a rare tightness.

It’s hard to say what the musical ideas are. But as I left I found myself singing something I was not even aware that I’d been hearing.

And I felt like a 20-year-old.