WITHOUT doubt this concert was musicianship at its very finest.

In the classiest fusion of jazz improvisations that were totally at one with strong middle-eastern themes, the Joseph Tawadros Quartet was astonishing and exhilarating in a program of Tawadros compositions that were in an intellectual league all their own.

It was a concert performance of the offerings on the Quartet’s album Angel, but the live performance was not just a re-hash of the recording; there were completely new interpretations with brilliance and spontaneity that come only from the rarest of rapports that performers can develop with their audience.

Tawadros, playing his evocative oud (cousin of the lute, with an occasional aural suggestion of the Indian sitar), established this rapport right at the start when he entered the stage alone to perform a solo composition in an extended, virtuosic improvisation that decisively set the scene.

Then his fellow virtuosi joined him for “Angel Suite in D”, a five-movement masterpiece from 2007 that saw Tawadros, along with Matt McMahon (piano), Dimitri Vouros (clarinet) and bother James Tawadros (bendir and req) each giving improvs that allowed them complete freedom of interpretation but each staying faithful to the mystique, rhythm and ethos of those mournful middle-eastern minor keys.

Even more captivating was the rapport the musicians had with each other. Ensemble sounds were beautifully balanced, but perfectly understated to give an entrancing edge to the musical magic and charm they created.

In the second half of the concert, the four-movement “Hand in Hand Suite in C” was another masterpiece, in which the group really settled into what was by then a truly, very special performer/audience rapport, even in the rarity of rapports of that kind. For the audience, that performance, dedicated to the band’s friend Barbara Blackman, was something so special, so rare, it became a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Two encores were demanded, to end a concert by the Joseph Tawadros Quartet that surely was, for any Canberra audience of any music genre, the concert of the year.