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The Yesaroun' Duo (Samuel Z. Solomon, percussion, and Eric Hewitt, saxophones and bass clarinet) gave the sort of presentation that is found in New York with some regularity but has pretty much disappeared from Boston since the early days of the Composers in Red Sneakers group: a concert with attitude that gleefully pushes the classical music genre into a head-on collision with pop idioms. As such, it was a welcome breath of fresh air around these parts. That it was also an enjoyable evening of high wire risk-taking and able music- making made it all the more special.

Four pieces by members of the Minimum Security Composers Collective, all commissioned by this duo and written last year, provided the cornerstone here. Smelting Solid Gold, by Adam B. Silverman, shreds a bucketful of James Brown tunes and reassembles them John Zorn fashion into an irreverent, humorous, enjoyable pastiche. It's a hoot, more fun than a bathtub full of otters. Dennis DeSantis's +8 performs similar operations upon figures rooted in techno-style dance mixed with a dash of jazz. While not benefiting from the tune recognition inherent in Silverman's work, it's a solid entity in its own right, raw and obsessive in speech, just the right length, and never boring. WATT, by Ken Ueno, while possessing its strong points, is a bit less successful. Here, jazz, rock, and funk appear in more internalized fashion than in the preceding entries. Much of the piece concerns itself with wildly energetic, intense gestures (perfumed with hints of Lee Hyla's oeuvre) that somehow manage to up the ante as they unfold, becoming a riveting game of "can you top this." Unfortunately, the few scattered breaks in this texture (including a lengthy soft section devoted to bowed and struck tam-tam) frustrate rather than provide repose, and seem more dropped-in than organic. Roshanne Etezady's Nothing if Not, while the composition most likely to appear on a traditional contemporary ensemble concert, does not have a whiff of dryness about it. Cast in a dissonant harmonic language, it proves colorful, contemplative, translucent at times to the point of fragility -- and good to hear.

Of the rest, the most intriguing entity was Le Corps a Corps (1982), by George Aperghis. For percussionist alone, it requires the player to intone a French language text in quasi-Sprechstimme manner and play a small ethnic drum containing elements of conga and tom-tom. Like the Ueno, it is loaded with lengthy stretches of frantic, obsessed music, and like the Etezady, it pays careful heed to timbral possibilities, much imaginative drum writing is encountered here. It is also a bit long for this listener's taste. Evan Ziporyn's Tsmindao Ghmerto is a curious little exercise. Here, a traditional Georgian choral chant is scored for solo bass clarinet, the three- and four-part textures of the original being obtained through use of multiphonics and singing into the instrument. It's a strange and unusual mix of the traditional and experimental. Robert Solomon's Hashkiveinu (1988), arranged for cantor, marimba, and tenor sax, is as tonal and tradition-steeped as any work one would care to name, essentially being a liturgical lullaby. While not a wildly cutting-edge entry, it is charming, warm, and sincerely felt.

Percussionist Solomon and saxophonist Hewitt were terrific, performing all selections with sympathetic gusto and accomplished sheen.