MUSIC REVIEWS : COLEMAN WINNERS AT RAMO AUDITORIUM

There were a few surprises Sunday afternoon, when the prize-winners of the 41st annual Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition showed their stuff in Ramo Auditorium at Caltech. Saxophone quartets won two awards, and the venerable competition finally had its first international winner.

Winner of the $3,000 award for woodwinds or brass, the Movellan Wind Quintet--Gerard Dutton, flute; Tania Frazer, oboe; Paul Dean, clarinet; Paul Evans, horn; Leesa Bauer, bassoon--from Australia was clearly at the head of the class. While looking terribly young and earnest, the group played with easy elegance and poise.

The players made Franz Danzi’s Haydnesque Quintet, Opus 56, No. 1, a compendium of ensemble graces, superbly balanced and sensitively phrased. For contrast, they offered sharply pointed, insouciant accounts of Ligeti’s conservatively sassy Bagatelles. If Movellan is representative of Australian ensembles, Down Under may soon be on top in chamber music.

As winners of the Vera Barstow Award and another $3,000, the Montclaire String Quartet from Connecticut evinced equal skill and elan. But the four players--violinists Julie Fox and Kathryn Hudson, violist Christine Vlajk, cellist Andrea Reynolds--had only a single work with which to present their case.

And unfortunately, the Montclaires gave a somewhat one-dimensional reading of Bartok’s Fifth Quartet, emphasizing the grittier aspects. Unduly raw sound often undermined their intense, purposeful interpretation.

The high level of musicianship apparent in the Saunderson Award-winning (a $1,800 prize) Arizona State University Saxophone Quartet--Michael Hester, Kathryn Copeland, Brett Haglin and Lawrence Brodie--was not applied to much substance. Jean Absil’s derivative, quasi-pops Suite, Opus 90, offered chances to display smooth power and quick fingers, but little else.

Guy Lacour’s more complex, astringent Quartet better served the Northwestern Saxophone Quartet--Karen Wylie, Edward Sabatino, Timothy Roberts and Susan Fancher--which took the $1,000 Russell Award. A neat, slightly subdued performance illuminated its shifting moods and textures, as well as the players’ obvious abilities.