Kings Place, London
Seeing Is Believing is a concerto for electric violin, the centrepiece of a felicitous partnership between Nico Muhly and London's Aurora Orchestra. Aurora's programming is as eclectic as Muhly's list of influences; this concert under Nicholas Collon spanned four centuries, finishing with a scamper through the cartoonish Chamber Symphony by John Adams, Muhly's most obvious musical begetter.
In Seeing Is Believing, Muhly references the portentous music that was the sound of TV astronomy in the 1980s, a decade he's too young to remember much of. It was written for Aurora's leader, Thomas Gould, and his six-string electric violin. The instrument's lowest strings dip into cello territory, but for much of the time Muhly treats it like a conventional violin, albeit one that, thanks to the amplification, could soar over the orchestra to the audience – in the hall, and at home watching the Guardian's live stream – with barely a shrug of Gould's bow.
Muhly borrows voraciously: the score itches with minimalism, then basks in Coplandesque sunshine. But he wears what he takes lightly and distinctively. The opening was especially arresting, Gould using a looping pedal to stack up embellishments on a brief, lonely curlicue. When this material returned in the closing minutes, Muhly's influence was clear: if Britten had written an opera requiring Four Space Interludes, the first would sound like this.
Earlier, a bravura dash through the finale to Hindemith's Kammermusik No 1 had sparked off from an evocative performance of Ives's The Unanswered Question. Thomas Adès's transcription of Couperin's Les Barricades Mystérieuses for five low instruments distilled the music's qualities, but Muhly's orchestral rescoring of two Byrd motets seemed an affectionate exercise in lily-gilding.