Buffalo, the snowy steel town up near Lake Erie most known for its chicken wings, has one of the most vibrant arts communities of the Rust Belt cities. On Friday and Saturday nights in Slosberg Recital Hall, Brandeis featured its Genkin Philharmonic, a 10-piece electro-acoustic chamber ensemble.

The majority of its members teach in the music department of the University at Buffalo. There's also a UB student among the players: Bill Louden, the keyboardist, who's pursuing a degree in music composition. Its other members have distinctly Buffalonian connections, too. Tim Clarke, the trumpet player, arranges music for toys and commercials at Fisher-Price, whose headquarters are southeast of Buffalo. And Jonathan Lombardo has been the principal trombone player of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra since 2004; he's a graduate of the Juilliard School along with Tom Kolor, the percussionist, who received his master's there.

The ensemble originated as a cred- it-giving class at UB for members to practice contemporary technical arrangements of classic tunes from Radiohead, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy and other musicians. Matthew Felski, on the drums, was a student member of the original Genkin, and a second, student-version of the group still exists on UB's campus. The professional Genkin has toured places like Mt. Holyoke College and State University of New York at Fredonia College and has played for sold-out crowds in Mexico City at jazz festivals.

The program on Friday included a number of Frank Zappa songs, whose piece "Echidna's Arf" was the first the band learned as a group. The Philharmonic gave renditions of his "Marqueson's Chicken and Pygmy Twylyte," on which guitarist and vocalist Tim Allen growled along into the micro- phone. The ensemble complemented Zappa's "musique concrete" style, music that combines acoustic and electronic sounds.

They played some songs by Zappa's forerunners, too, like classical com- poser Igor Stravinsky on pieces like "Double Canon" and "Inertia." Bela Bartok's Eastern European folk-tinged Mikrokosmos, a collection of songs, were paid homage, as well. Director Jon Nelson's interpretation of Mikrokosmos transformed the piano piece into an electric guitar and drum affair fit for boogie nights.
Bartok, a 20th-century composer, was known for being one of the founders of ethnomusicology and approached the study of music from an anthropological perspective. Steve Baczkowski, the ensemble's saxophonist, began exploring this perspective while studying American Studies at UB, according to Buffalo Spree magazine. That explains the homemade didgeridoo he used, which is similar to a wooden trumpet. Most didgeridoos aren't tune-able, but Bacskowski made his own didgeridoo from PVC pipes so he could tune it. He was a standout member: When he wasn't crouching like a passionate chicken on the sax, he swung the didgeridoo, blowing into it, releasing sounds evocative to circling drones.

Lazara Nelson, the only woman of the group, stood out as well on the violin. Nelson is originally from Havana, where she was the solo violinist for the Havana-based Camerata Romeu, an all-women string orchestra. She met Jon Nelson, Genkin director, at a mu- sic festival, and they married. They stood side-by-side both nights playing the violin and trumpet respectively.
On Saturday, the Philharmonic played pieces written by Brandeis' own Music Department students. The ensemble learned the students' pieces and performed them Genkin-style, arguably better than "Gangnam Style."