Minnesota Ensemble a Fresh Treat

We can count on Monday Evening Concerts, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, to confirm that new music is alive and more or less well--with groups such as the Minnesota Contemporary Ensemble, heard on Monday, tending the flame.

The ensemble’s sampler program contained some running themes: among them, the blending of live and taped material, and an interest in narrative. That quality was best embodied in Libby Larsen’s beguiling, bittersweet “Neon Angel.” Based on the story of an airline stewardess who fell out of a plane to her death in 1962, the piece reflects on time and mortality, with elements of dissonance, tuneful “found sound” and Ives-ian layering adding up to an ethereal whole.

Another potent piece, John Howell Morrison’s “Hard Weather Makes Good Wood,” establishes a more abstract narrative tension. In this story, a string quartet plays woodsy, folk-inspired textures but is goaded into harsher terrain when ghostly passages of angst-laden taped sound enter the mix.

Tom Trenka’s intriguing “watch . . . wait” also mixes live performance, including the airy sonic sheen of rubbed wine glasses, with tape in a surreal interplay. Allen Gleck’s “Anti Warhol” closed the show on its least effective note.

Most of the works were written for the ensemble, but it also dipped into the broader new music pool. Astor Piazzolla’s “Four, for Tango” is a gutsy, brashly impassioned piece, played aptly. Frank Zappa’s “Black Page,” a tricky, meandering line, was played here in snug unison by drummer Dave Schmalenberger and pianist John Jensen.

It’s a treat to hear lovingly rendered Zappa performed in Los Angeles, his hometown, which hasn’t shown him the reverence his music enjoys elsewhere. Minnesota, for example.