It was something of a misnomer to call the Paragon Ensemble's concert of music by Indian-born composers Connecting Cultures. In reality, most of the music on the programme was contemporary classical music written by composers whose training and influences place them squarely within western traditions. Nag-Bushan Odekar's First String Quartet was a straightforwardly modernist exercise, cast in three well-crafted movements, and Param Vir's Contrapulse was an efficient rhythmic machine for large ensemble. Sandeep Bhagwati is currently investigating the links between western contemporary music and Indian classical traditions, but his Why Sing Why Cry for violin and cello, played by Jagdish Mistry and Michael Kasper, impressed because of its experimental, avant-garde boldness. In an unpredictable sequence of movements, veering from aphoristic miniatures to long, static sections, the piece analysed the boundaries between sound and silence. The players muffled their instruments with practice mutes and brushed their strings with the lightest of touches before the music exploded with expressionistic violence.

But in their programme of contemporary Japanese music conducted by Garry Walker, the ensemble introduced music by composers who consciously fused traditions. The world premiere of Trois Airs du Genji Monogatari by Yoritsune Matsudaira, who died in his nineties in 2001, revealed an austere yet luminous scena for soprano, here Yumi Nara, and ensemble. The third aria set Nara's glissandos and swoops against a backdrop of glittering percussion. Toru Takemitsu's Rain Spell created a translucent pool of sounds from its ensemble of five players, but the most striking music on the programme was by Toshio Hosokawa. Voyage I, for large ensemble, was based on the Zen concept of breathing and unfolded as a massive wave of tension and release, built from the small-scale breathing patterns of individual instruments.