Music / “The Beauty of Living Sound”, Simone de Haan and Miroslav Bukovsky, ANU Drill Hall Gallery, August 4. Reviewed by TONY MAGEE

THE mysterious, secretive sounds and utterances of the Outback’s creatures of the night are not something I’m particularly familiar with. Unlike some other members of my family, this boy generally prefers the comforts of home.

But trumpet and flugel horn player Miroslav Bukovsky and trombonist Simone de Haan transported me there and to other places in a fascinating, diverse concert that took the art to extremes and cleansed the audience with magnificent melody and harmony.

Beginning with muted trumpet and trombone, the first of six pieces contained delicate trumpet phrasing in abstract, melodic form accompanied by drone sounds, almost of a didgeridoo nature, from the trombone.

The two artists instantly became enraptured within their own personal space of creativity but, at the same time, they listened intently to what the other was creating as an inspiration to follow a path of unknown destination. Such was the point and the brilliance of everything they played.

I listened and closed my eyes and then suddenly there it was, right in front of me, a thylacine. Long thought to be extinct on the mainland and possibly in Tasmania since the 1930s, it appeared in the middle of the Drill Hall Gallery. I don’t know if it was male or female, but for the duration of this piece and most of the others that followed, it remained there, circling around and curiously snorting, sniffing and grunting.

Other pieces in the program were more conversational. The fourth piece in particular –  starting with a comedic dialogue using just the mouth pieces. Perhaps it was two people who speak different languages, but they found a common ground of expressive understanding and morphed into what for me was the highlight of the event: a mournful, souring and beauteous rendition of “Body and Soul”.

I misted up as I recalled it was the last song performed in public by the late jazz and cabaret diva Gery Scott. That was October 9, 2005, at the Hyatt Hotel, Canberra.

Throughout the concert, the musicians used the superb backdrop of visual art from the exhibition “The DNA of Colour”, by Ildiko Kovacs, as an inspiration for their glorious improvised melodies, as well as the guttural, primal, evocative and haunting sounds of colour and depth they managed to produce from their instruments.

This concert was not just about sitting and listening to music. The audience was transported, transfixed, inspired and swept through such a labyrinth of emotions: dramatic, sensual, mystical, primal, rhythmic and melodic. It was one of the most fascinating, unusual and satisfying artistic events I’ve attended for years, presented by two world-class musicians.