BRISK CONDUCTS : EVENING OF PERCUSSION COMPOSITIONS AT LACE

The thought of an extended composition devoted to sensory deprivation must give pause to the most intrepid musical adventurer. But Sunday evening at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Theodore Peterson’s “Dr. John Wants to Talk to Dolphins” proved an irresistibly sensuous, surprisingly upbeat experience.

Heard on a program presented by the Independent Composers Assn., “Dr. John” deals not with isolation, but with the human results. Peterson constructed a six-section poem from the exclamations of people in sensory deprivation experiments, on which he created a richly scored song cycle, compact at 24 minutes.

Though it has mystical and purposefully disoriented moments, much of Peterson’s music is euphoric. Laurie Gurman sang his wide-ranging, eminently tuneful lines with a bell-like, amplified soprano. Deborah Schwartz, Bob Fernandez, Ron George and David Johnston toiled effectively with a large percussion battery, conducted by Barry Brisk.

Brisk’s evocative, clearly structured “Here--There--and Back” for marimba was also on the agenda. Schwartz rapped it out with appropriate concern for linear progression.

Other solo efforts were Ron George’s gently bonging, buzzing “Some Here, Some There” for electronically enhanced vibraphone and Michael Fink’s leaden “At the End” for tubular chimes. George played his own partially improvised work, and Fernandez plied the chimes.

John Granet’s earnest “Paean” provided more substantial, outgoing work for Fernandez, Schwartz and George. Brisk led the culminating performance of John Cage’s “Third Construction,” which sounded like nothing so much as Disneyland’s Enchanted Tiki Room gone berserk.