Music / Theremin and Beyond, Australian Chamber Orchestra with Carolina Eyck. At Llewellyn Hall, May 20. Reviewed by SARAH BYRNE.

I make a point of never missing an opportunity to experience a novelty instrument, from a live performance of The Birds soundtrack on trautonium, to the melodica trio that played at my wedding.

So a theremin concert had my interest from the outset.

If you’ve ever heard the Midsomer Murder’s theme, or the original Star Trek, or, indeed, the uncanny descant in the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations, then you already know the theremin, an electronic instrument named for the Soviet physicist who invented it in 1920 after government-sponsored research into proximity sensors. The musician never actually touches the instrument, moving between the antennae to produce different tones and pitch. Kind of like musical reiki, but a good deal more rewarding.

While it might be easier to replicate these sounds on newer electronic instruments (looking at you, Doctor Who theme), there is something special and fascinating in the extraordinary level of skill and dexterity required to coax melody from a theremin. It’s almost as much performance art as music.

The reiki master embellishing the ACO on this occasion is the equally intriguing German musician Carolina Eyck, who has been carving her impressive niche within this niche since childhood (having started as an infant on violin, probably the closest analog approximation of the sound). She’s generous and approachable in her explanations to the rapt audience, making the technical accessible.

The program is likewise technical but accessible, ranging from popular contemporary compositions designed to incorporate theremin (see Star Trek and the Beach Boys, above), to arrangements of more standard works for strings (everyone from Schulmann to Saint-Saens), with theramin inserted. Even if I’m not always convinced the substitution is an improvement from a purely musical perspective, Eyck’s virtuosity is jaw-dropping and never short of thoroughly entertaining. Offenbach’s CanCan was a case in point – if the rescoring for strings was not completely persuasive, the reprise, slowed down in a melancholy Mendelssohn-style arrangement, was revelatory.

Highlights of the program were, in particular, Eyck’s own composition Strange Birds, and a new ACO-commissioned work from Australian composer Holly Harrison, Hovercraft, an exhilarating uptempo piece with added drive from percussionist Brian Nixon providing fierce support. (Mention should also be made of the gorgeous piano accompaniment of Tamara-Anna Cislowska in the romantic numbers).

And there was much audience love for the Flight of the BumbleBee, which I am now persuaded Rimsky-Korsakov would have originally scored for theremin had he not died 12 years before it was invented. And a serendipitous inclusion on International Day of the Bee.

This was the last concert in Eyck’s tour, but from her closing remarks she enjoyed her time in Australia nearly as much as the audience enjoyed the performance. So we can only hope she returns soon to give us more of this astonishing and entertaining instrument.