All praise to Musica Viva for securing Eighth Blackbird for the first tour of 2017. The Chicago ensemble are foremost in the field of contemporary classical ensembles, and their well-chosen program provided a truly refreshing beginning to the musical year. Eighth Blackbird is committed to moving music forward through innovative performance, to advocate for new music by living composers and create a legacy of guiding an emerging generation of musicians. Their warm on-stage manner is matched by their fine attention to technical detail.

Nico Muhly's Doublespeak (2012), written in honour of Philip Glass's 75th birthday, opened the concert. The interweaving motifs created a sound pattern like hundreds of wings in motion as a flock of birds takes flight. Each member of the ensemble contributed to recreate this tribute to the new music of the 1970s. References to Glass, Reich and Riley entered and exited and the work drew to conclusion in passages of dreamy harmonics.

Murder Ballades (2013) by Bryce Dessner also borrowed from past musicians in the thematic material for the suite. There are snippets of baroque dance tunes, surreal blends of klezma and Irish reels, hoedown fiddle shuffling with thigh slapping and whooping and delicate elephant murmurings issuing from the clarinet. In the final Pretty Polly, the soundscape was evocative of a deep cellar with the water dripping from the ceiling onto the sad victim imprisoned there.

Holly Harrison's Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup (2016) was the gutsy commission composed for Eighth Blackbird by University of Western Sydney graduate, Holly Harrison. The work has a shape like jazz, rock and funk combined with the score turned upside down. Cellist Nicholas Photinos gave a particularly funky performance and percussionist Matthew Duvall stole the show with his ability to switch from beat to beat and groove to groove.

Continuing the evening's theme of intertextual references, Ted Hearne's By-By Huey makes use of aggressive prepared piano, wild swings of tempo, mesmerising rhythmic textures and exquisite tonal interludes underneath high, suspended notes from individual instrumentalists. The work was inspired by Robert Arneson's painting of the 24-year-old who murdered the co-founder of the Black Panther movement, Huey P. Newton. Like the superimposed praying mantis that eats its own, the music at time conveys the sense of music devouring meaning.

Checkered Shade by Timo Andres was a magical conclusion to the evening's music. Beginning with a minutely exquisite violin motif played by Yvonne Lam over vibes, each instrument added bell-like and crystal wind-chime sounds to create the spiral effect of the notation – mimicking the patterning in the painting Variegated Spirals by Astrid Bowlby. These two works represented the pinnacle of the program, both for the coherent compositional structure and for the excellence of the performance. With the propulsive rhythms and cohesive strength of the ensemble, Eighth Blackbird unlocked the door into their exciting musical world.