For any university with a good music department, the answer is often, as new programs are offered every semester. But what are different - and needed - are programs like the one Dolce Suono offered Saturday at the First Unitarian Church to showcase compositional voices that are not brand new but are still finding their way. This one was drawn from the membership of the American Composers Forum, Philadelphia chapter; some are still students, while others have considerable pedigree.

All works were written for Dolce Suono's Metal and Wood Band configuration with a flute, guitar, viola, and bass lineup that echoed the sexy otherworldliness of Boulez's famous Le Marteau sans Maitre. Given its treble nature, flute most often had the primary focus, although Stillman's full-toned charisma no doubt influenced the composers in her direction. Some pieces showed the composers making the diverse timbres of that group work in a triumph of ingenuity; others focused expressive content on a single instrument without getting the most out of the rest of the ensemble. Though the pieces didn't always feel finished, their promise made you want to hear more from their creators.

William Dougherty had a great idea with Karlsplatz - how the hallowed Vienna State Opera sits atop one of the city's seedier subway stops - though the musical manifestation of that wasn't so evocative. Conceptually, Michael John Ceurvost's The Exchange was nothing special, but the music was, beginning with ensemble texture driven from within by the guitar, giving way to one of the evening's loveliest flute solos.

Kevin Clark's admiration for the T.S. Eliot poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" led him to have Stillman reciting parts of the poem between commentary on solo flute in the manner of Peter and the Wolf - an idea worth trying even if Eliot's poem is so complete unto itself that the music is superfluous.

The better pieces came from those most ready to acknowledge the playing field of a small-ensemble concert of short-ish pieces.

While Paganini's Caprices for solo violin tend to be odysseys in violin technique, David Bennett Thomas (who studied with Lukas Foss) created an intense emotional journey, similar to an operatic recitative and aria, in Whim for solo flute. In adapting the Balkan folk song "Sejdefu majka budase" for flute and guitar, Michael Djupstrom found places for his own personality, never descending into cloying folksiness but acting more as cubist, looking at the tune from all different angles.