Dolce Suono at its newest venue

The interior of First Unitarian Church at 21st and Chestnut Streets is painted such an electric hue that someone teased George Crumb during intermission at Dolce Suono's Wednesday-night concert that he wouldn't need the blue light usually requested for

Vox Balaenae

(Voice of the Whale).

No, he didn't, though the players (Mimi Stillman, flute; Yumi Kendall, cello; Charles Abramovic, piano) did wear the black half-masks the score requires, and the instruments were amplified as the music made its way within the bold blue walls of Dolce Suono's newest venue.

It was an ambitious close to the trio's season opener. Brave. Founder Stillman, exceedingly gifted, did not look or sound entirely comfortable with some of the extended techniques that Crumb pioneered well before she was born, especially the opening "Vocalise," which has the flutist singing and playing the instrument simultaneously. Whatever ambitions failed this time around, congratulations are due this program. Stillman chose her partners well (both musicians, Abramovic in particular, and composers), though next time it might be better if she dispenses with opening remarks and saves her attention for the art.

There were many beauties to Crumb's meditation on timelessness and the sea, though you needed to overlook a few distractions in a less-than-ideal setting for a drama that depends on absolute poise and quiet: the cell phone that went off, the man in the wheelchair who needed help. Whether you forgot or never knew that the sound of hope and discord jangled into exultancy was created from the paper clip and glass rods inside the keyboard and the pianist who knew just when and how to remove them, the sound was of exultancy. I hope they try Vox Balaenae again.

Crumb's a master, Ned Rorem, too. Rorem's 1960 Trio is likewise moody but more mercurial, more concise - our musical Pascal. The three rendered its verses to perfection, especially the rollicking French passages. Not a slip.

A nice surprise was Abramovic's Beasts - "Manticora," which gobbles things; "Cygnus," which waltzes while Kendall thrums so lovingly, easy to see why she is the Philadelphia Orchestra's assistant principal; "Leucrota," whose velocity can thrill. The trio played at peak with this one. Stillman's woodwind was a marvel of melody and pitch.

Curt Cacioppo's Snake Dance spirals into beauty, a labyrinth of imagery, this web of Native American themes. The opening is tentative; or was it the performance? A sense that the interpretation had further to go, required more spaciousness. The close, a fade-out, felt shortchanged.