MUSIC REVIEW : Monday Series Looks East

These are busy, festive days at the County Museum of Art, not least in the music department. Sandwiched into a lineup of concerts this week celebrating the new Pavilion for Japanese Art was the opening of the venerable Monday Evening Concerts season.

A tie-in to the Pavilion and Japan Week L.A. 1988 was natural. No wide-ranging sampler, Monday’s eccentric, only intermittently engaging program of contemporary Japanese music had a narrow but bifurcated focus.

The first half centered on the formidable expressive and technical talents of flutist Michiko Akao. Playing nohkan and ryuteki --two types of transverse, bamboo flutes--she displayed striking breath and timbral control, and made a strong case for her own interpretive, re-creative powers.

Her nohkan solos, “Kaze No Rosho” by Isao Matsushita and “Mai-Bataraki II” by Joji Yuasa of the UC San Diego faculty, proved potent, distinctive vehicles. Both exploit an inflective, gestural sort of lyricism and rely heavily on the performer’s timing to shape and propel the music.

“Kaze No Rosho” began simply as breathing, and developed organically into an almost programmatic wind song, while “Mai-Bataraki II” was at once more abstract and more forceful. Their individual identity, however, seemed homogenized and overwhelmed under Akao’s personal stamp.

The two ryuteki works were accompanied, Toshi Ichiyanagi’s “Yocho” by piano, Maki Ishii’s “Koku” by percussion, and both revealed more of the composer and less of the performers.

The piano and flute parts in “Yocho” meandered on separate but equal paths to a point where penetrating flute sounds in close pitch relationships colored the sound of the piano in a static but remarkably scored climax. Pianist Shunsuke Kurakata was Akao’s sensitive partner.

“Koku,” on the other hand, was more clearly shaped and equally dramatically scored, pungent in sound and focused in spirit. Amy Knoles and Arthur Jarvinen played the percussion battery with musical precision and a committed respect for the visual, ritual aspects of their work.

The second half of the concert was “Do X,” a structured improvisation by Ushio Torikai and Carl Stone with a modest array of musical electronics. Torikai and Stone are innovative exploiters of new technologies, who have been touring together this month.

The results of the collaboration in “Do X,” alas, somehow seemed much less than the sum of the parts. In two sections, “Do X” strained the patience of even series regulars in the audience, with a scattered contingent fleeing between the movements.

It began well--as a resonant, moody soundscape of nicely layered effects that were ultimately dispersed through speakers around the hall. An anguished buzz, like a large power tool in extremis, flattened those effects and the spirits of the listeners, bringing the first section to a close. The second portion began, and continued, as an indulgent shamisen solo by Torikai, soon linked to a dry clattering effect.