At first glance Omega Ensemble’s program for their latest tour appeared to be somewhat motley – Finnish pianist-composer Olli Mustonen’s backward-glancing Nonet No. 2, an in-the-moment world premiere of a work by young Australian composer Harry Sdraulig and a chamber version of Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

But this 90-minute concert, played straight through, worked brilliantly with the audience erupting in cheers and foot stamping, demanding an encore from pianist Vatche Jambazian.

Musically speaking Mustonen can turn his hand to anything. A world-renowned concert pianist and chamber music partner to the likes of cellist Steven Isserlis and tenor Ian Bostridge, he is also a conductor and post-modern composer of a large repertoire including three symphonies, concertos, chamber and vocal works. Many of them “take up ideas” from Baroque and early Classical periods – he started life as a harpsichordist – and Nonetto II also borrows from the Romantics with Franz Schubert’s String Quintet an obvious reference point for its gorgeous Adagio movement.

Vatche Jambazian. Photo © Jordan Munns

Scored for four violins, two violas, two cellos and double bass, the short first movement Inquieto, which leads straight into an “impetuous”...