Sunday's inaugural New Music Brandeis concert, the first of a multipart series, tested the boundaries of conventional classical music. All the compositions were created by graduate students and performed by local musicians; most of them went far beyond my expectations in terms of quality.Orlando Cela performed "Huayruro," a flute solo written by Maxwell Dulaney, with great skill. It was an extremely difficult piece to pull off, with many discordant sounds and unorthodox uses of the instrument. Often, Cela would do strange things such as simply blowing air without a sound or lightly tapping the instrument and using it as an imitation drum. At first, the presentation seemed amateur and inartistic, but it grew more sophisticated as the piece went on.

This bizarre work was followed by Karina Sabac's performance of "Hommage Oe un adieu" and "D'abord le vent et puis le silence," two short piano pieces written by John Aylward. Filled with emotion and alternating degrees of dynamics, the two pieces crossed various tempos, sounds and pitches, allowing Sabac to show a true depth of talent. Unfortunately, the pieces were too short to truly maintain a recurring theme.

By far the piece that stood out the most was "Notturno," composed by Mark Bergerand performed by the Lydian String Quartet, made up of music Profs. Daniel Stepner, Judith Eissenberg, Mary Ruth Ray and Joshua Gordon. The Lydians did not falter from their usual excellence and all the other performers, no matter how skilled, paled in comparison. Still, incessant squealing notes were frustratingly featured from the middle of the piece on, whether due to the choice of the players or the composers.

After an intermission, the concert continued with Royden Tull's "The Stone Chimes of K'ung," a piano solo performed by Sarah Bob. This was a much simpler piece, with far fewer tonal shifts than the previous ones. Its less experimental nature served the piece well, as it was calming to the ears and had a finely-executed theme.

Continuing with the more traditional feel was Yohanan Chendler's "Suite for Clarinet Solo," presented by Michael Norsworthy. Unlike "K'ung," this long solo was not suited by its repetition, making the piece seem to drone on. The lower and bolder tone of Norsworthy's clarinet was quite surprising here, but it was unfortunately accompanied by a relatively lackluster performance, especially toward the end.

The finale brought out the best in composers and musicians alike. Playing "Brouhaha," the stronger by far of Aylward's two pieces, Norsworthy showed his true talent on the clarinet, alongside Gordon on cello and Bob on piano. The premise of the piece was for each of the three musicians to allow his or her instruments to demonstrate personality through how he or she played. As the three different instruments played against each other, they created a polyphonic piece which kept the audience fully entertained and musically satisfied.