On Friday night at Newcastle City Hall, under the blue light glow of iPad sheet music, a tightly huddled crowd experienced the Baroque music of Johann Sebastian Bach (born in 1685, before the invention of the piano), works by two composers born in 1933 (Krzysztof Penderecki and Henryk Górecki), and 21st century sounds of Caroline Shaw, born in 1982.

Made and performed by the Omega Ensemble, one of Australia’s leading chamber music groups, Continuo’s title is a reference to the instrument at the centre of the program – the harpsichord, and its basso continuo role in Baroque ensemble music.

The Omega Ensemble’s performance began without the harpsichord, however. The ornate, Australian-made Carey Beebe model was left to lurk at the back of the stage as a teaser of things to come. The opening silence was instead broken by celloist Paul Stender, with a virtuosic recital of Bach’s Cello Suit No. 1 in G major – a calm, introspective solo, and one so renowned that when you Google “cello solo”, it pops up as the number one search result.

When the rest of the string quintet joined Stender for Shaw’s 2011 composition, Entr’acte, the music leapt forward roughly 300 years without missing...