Pomegranate

Blending Western classical stylistics and compositional techniques with tunes and sonorities from a mainly Mediterranean and Eastern European catchment, Kosmos Ensemble consist of Harriet Mackenzie on violin, Meg Hamilton on viola, Miloš Milivojević on accordion and Shirley Smart on cello, with Vasilis Sarikis guesting on percussion for a couple of tracks. This line-up creates a sound much like a string quartet but it is subverted by the addition of the accordion, providing a rich harmonic base and melodic lines that sit well with the strings.

The ensemble's method involves making unlikely combinations of tunes from diverse sources and fusing them together using a variety of clever compositional techniques. For example, in the ingenious ‘The Lark’, Vaughan Williams' serene bird meets its manic Romanian counterpart ‘Ciocârlia’, they dance to a couple of Hungarian folk tunes and are later joined by Saint-Saëns' swan. There's a dynamic arrangement of the Russian classic ‘Dark Eyes’, some romping Ukrainian dances and quite a few pieces that have been given the Piazzolla treatment. I'll let you imagine what ‘Liberklezango’ sounds like. All of this is delivered with stunning virtuosity and sensitive attention to stylistic details.