BMIC Cutting Edge Tour, National Centre for Early Music, York

New sounds from the Old World

The medieval grandeur of St Margaret's, Walmgate, York was the setting for the British Music Information Centre's Cutting Edge weekend. The first event, Topologies, launched it in style: Ian Pace combined authoritative sweep with scrupulous attention to detail in the first three volumes of James Dillon's The Book of Elements for solo piano. No doubt he will perform all five volumes when they are completed – worth looking out for, as this is already building into one of the most searching piano works of our time.

Pascal Dusapin's Trio Rombach made a glorious counterweight. The central movement's sumptuous, arching string lines were punctuated by coy interjections from the piano – Ian Pace's masterly touch most effective here and at the work's ethereal conclusion. Some gorgeous, lyrical playing from violinist Darragh Morgan and cellist Zoe Martlew set the seal on a magnificent reading of an sincere, eloquent and emotionally involving score.

A packed programme, entitled Lullabies and Nightmares, ranged from intricate metric games in Steve Reich's Clapping Music to a stunning account of Xenakis's thunderous Rebonds. The world premiere of Anthony Gilbert's Sinfin Parados in a version for two vibraphones was a tender highlight, combining an almost symphonic breadth with a subtly shaded expressive strength.

Another event, Electric Lives, presented a challenging series of works for electro-acoustic and computer music. Janey Miller was the eloquent soloist in Thea Musgrave's gravely beautiful Niobe for oboe and tape. Keening solo lines wove a lament while the computer-generated echoes moulded an unearthly, atmospheric backdrop. Andrew Zolinsky's persuasive rendition of Jonathan Harvey's Tombeau de Messiaen for piano and digital audio tape captured the right atmosphere of ecstatic spirituality in the chordal passages and invested the last, dramatic plunge down the keyboard with a stark finality.

The closing concert, Vanitas, gave a rare chance to hear the eponymous work by Salvatore Sciarrino. A 50-minute, multi-sectional song for soprano, cello and piano that is of cumulative hypnotic intensity, resolved by a four-minute descending cello glissando, Vanitas will leave you either spellbound or stultified. Perhaps the constraints of a concert performance meant this "still life in one act" ultimately failed to convince.

Earlier, soprano Lore Lixenberg created an appropriate atmosphere of melancholy in Harrison Birtwistle's pastoral settings of Lorine Niedecker poems, effectively communicating the sense of nature's transience in the text.

In view of the talent and material on offer, the turnout was disappointing. Next month, selected items are repeated in Nottingham, Oxford and Cambridge. I hope these opportunities to catch some of the pieces will be well supported – as a snapshot of the cutting edge of contemporary music, the weekend was both stylistically varied and artistically impressive.