On Sunday afternoon the Irish Museum of Modern Art presented the first of three concerts of contemporary choral music from Ireland. John Buckley's Music When Soft Voices Die (1984) and He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven (1995) quote madrigals and feature detailed textual expression. Eric Sweeney's Memorials (1993) is simpler, declamatory and direct. Brian Boydell's Three Madrigals (1967) show an immediate yet subtle madrigalian relationship. This effective and thoughtful music wears well with age and repeated hearing.

If these pieces are indebted to the Renaissance, then David Fennessy's Aimhreigh, commissioned by Cantique and here receiving its premiere, is high Baroque - full of unsubtle imagery and extravagant harmony. It has ideas, and is probably rewarding in performance. Doing his own thing as usual was Gerald Barry in The Coming Of Winter (1997); and Eibhlis Farrell's Caritas Abundat (1995) was vivid in its recreation of medieval polyphonic concepts.

Roy Holmes (piano) played Philip Flood's Pivot and Ian Wilson's Big. Holmes was persuasive in Big: his deliberately rangy, long-limbed rhythm was more congruent with the music's sumptuous vocabulary than the brittle approach I have heard from other performers of this piece.

Cantique has some of the best chamber-music voices available, despite some recent changes of personnel. Nevertheless, The Coming Of Winter - far less secure than it was in Cork last May - epitomised a recurrent problem. The performances were good; but they could have been much better.

Cantique concerts next Sunday and Sunday 23rd are at 3 p.m.