At the beginning of the year CEFC brightened up a cold January with their Tango Clasico : as we leave the season of mellow thingyness they give us a winter warmer.

Traditionalists would not have been pleased by this concert - not a Kyrie in earshot. For heaven’s sake conductor David Temple was not even wearing a monkey suit. And the band looked like it was recruited from Ronnie Scott’s. In fact I think it was!

This concert was in support of the work of Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org) and its theme was jazz and political expression.

The evening’s warm up work was from Sir Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time. The arrangement was excellent, particularly the brooding and angry Let My People Go. Perhaps the piece would have benefited from placing the basses at the centre of the stage or recruiting a soloist.

Peckham Dog (Roland Perrin) really is a one-off. It’s about, well, a dog in Peckham. And he’s crossing the road. And the work really catches the hustle bustle and traffic mayhem of a busy inner city street as seen from the eye level of a dog. The Chorus loved it, and with lines like

Woof woof woof
Howl
Woof woof woof
Howl
Woof woof woof

they must have thought that they had gone barking mad! Great fun.

The fun ran out in the next piece. A wretchedly haunting work by James Macmillan, written in English so that the listener has no option but to soak in the horror of the subject matter. The title Cantos Sagrados (1990) literally means Sacred Songs. In three parts, the poems are about political repression in Latin America. The musical discord is powerfully created but the chorus is amplified and echoed by a discordant, ear splitingly loud organ. The dialogue is abstract and confused. The finale is a Latin extract from the Creed and acts as a kind of balm to soothe and calm. Astonishing.

Then, after an interval, Roland Perrin returned with Songs from the Cage. The libretto consisted of poems by Charles Bukowski - off beat and irreverent. The Blue Planet Orchestra (a thirteen piece jazz band) provided the music with some very talented players, particularly in the brass section.

The juxtaposition of Choir with band in the Barbican posed a few questions of protocol for the audience - when should we applaud? That was easily solved - whenever we fancied it. And fancy it we did - a lot! I also got the impression that the Chorus wanted to applaud. The level of dancing and animation was high, even by CEFC standards. It would have been hard to hold back as the six songs were set to marabi, cha-cha-cha, bossa nova and samba rhythms.

A enjoyable evening and a tribute to David Temple’s bravery in his willingness to experiment. We need more evenings like this but, please, don’t forget the Kyrie’s.