Pro Musica Nipponia Fuses Past, Future

When Pro Musica Nipponia returned to Southern California this week, five of the works played by the 11-player ensemble did not represent an exotic juxtaposition of old-style Japanese folk expressions with recent pieces in the style of Western composers.

Rather, as heard Sunday night at the El Camino Center for the Arts, they proved a fusion of contemporary writing with traditional instruments. These compositions, by group members Keiko Abe and founder Minoru Miki, do not explore the past, though they use its options; they look to a future.

The instrumentation--including flutes (fue and shakuhachi), stringed instruments like the biwa, three kotos of differing sizes and a variety of percussion--results in a sound profile of unmistakable character but unpredictable styles.

Consequently, Abe’s “Prism” Rhapsody for solo marimba and the ensemble, a work first introduced in Sweden three years ago, has a patina of contemporaneity. Its components may be familiar--an extended marimba cadenza in the middle section, for instancebut the whole sounds new and provocative.

Evelyn Glennie, the Scottish percussionist, is the guest soloist on the group’s current tour, and gave a virtuosic display in the protagonist’s role.

Glennie was also the busy soloist in Miki’s rewritten (for this tour) “Requiem 99,” a mournful yet active 22-minute showcase for the entire ensemble, which begins and ends with the sound of stones being hit together. Before that, a more conventional “Autumn Fantasy” for shakuhachi and 20-string koto offered a variety of timbres used for moody purposes.

The evening began with a ritual entrance-piece for the ensemble, “Shinyachiyojishi,” followed by a mellifluous work by Miki for three kotos, called “Aya I.”

Miki was in Marsee Auditorium, though he did not appear onstage until after the closing work.