The sensibility LACMA lacks

MY local bookseller has run out of copies of “Why Bad Presenters Happen to Good Concerts.” But that may explain the small audience for Tuesday night’s concert at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The once vibrant and increasingly youthful crowd for new music at LACMA may have simply snapped up copies of this important new bestseller and decided that a good cry beats a trip to LACMA for new music these days.

Tuesday’s program featured Xtet, a musical mainstay at the museum for more than two decades. This season, the ensemble was granted a single night on the desultory new series “Art & Music” -- all that’s left of new music programming at LACMA.

The series’ mandate is to make music relate to exhibitions, and Tuesday’s theme was “L.A. Sounds and Sights.” That meant next to nothing, given that some of the five composers had L.A. connections and others not really.

Stravinsky lived in L.A. late in his life. John Cage was born here but did not stay past his student years. Morton Feldman was a guest at CalArts a time or two, and his Piano and String Quartet had its premiere at LACMA in 1985. The last time I saw Aaron Jay Kernis in town was around 20 years ago at Ojai, although he may have dropped by since. Phil O’Connor is a member of Xtet.

The art connection proved equally slight. A slide of Alexis Smith’s “Sea of Tranquility” was projected during Stravinsky’s spiky “Three Songs From William Shakespeare.” Ed Ruscha’s painting of a can of Spam was ironic background for Kernis’ “The Four Seasons of Futurist Cuisine.” John McLaughlin’s “#5,” two black pillars against a white background, was the inspiration for O’Connor’s “War:Again(st)? (T)error!” but was forced to serve Feldman’s “The Viola in My Life II” and three Cage songs.

Oh, well. There were some fine performances. Soprano Elissa Johnston was the careful soloist in Stravinsky’s songs, which had their premiere in 1953 at a Monday Evening Concert (a series, like Xtet’s, that LACMA also axed after last season), and the gorgeous singer of the Cage pieces as well.

Stravinsky breaks Shakespeare down to tight, barbed rhythmic cells and shards of instrumental color. Cage -- in “The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs” (with a James Joyce text), “A Flower” (a vocalise) and “The Year Begins to Be Ripe” (Thoreau) -- asks for the exquisite plainness of chant-like vocal lines, sung without vibrato to the gentle accompaniment of tapping on a piano whose lid is closed. Johnston floated her soprano with great beauty; Vicki Ray tapped pleasingly.

Kernis’ piece is fun with the Futurists. Founder F.T. Marinetti’s manifesto -- tongue-in-cheek, so to speak -- was read with verve by John Steinmetz. The playful accompaniment by violin (Sarah Thornblade), viola (Kazi Pitelka) and piano (Ray) was full of fire.

Feldman’s solo for viola and small ensemble, conducted by Donald Crockett, benefited from Pitelka’s rich, full tone. And O’Connor’s new score -- a half-hour sequence of short movements for six players and electronics -- bopped along agreeably.

The composer, who is Xtet’s clarinetist, got carried away with philosophy in his program note. But his music proved straightforward enough. The players, in various combinations, fall in and out of step with one another while maintaining propulsion. The performance was often thrilling.

A bit of housekeeping: LACMA’s prices have gone up to $25 for these concerts. It was not so long ago that students were allowed in free. Now the young head for concerts downtown. No song texts were provided, nor biographical information about the performers. I could find no help, especially not from LACMA’s website, in learning the details of the program in advance. As usual, the Bing cafeteria inhospitably began closing half an hour before the concert began.

LACMA’s Latin and jazz nights may be hot. Its new music is not.

mark.swed@latimes.com