By Andrew Firestone

Centennial Auditorium and an audience of around 350 welcomed members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for their eighth community concert of the season. Somerville residents were treated to one of the finer things in life this last Sunday, March 27, as the sextet prepared and delivered heart-wrenching compositions of the most experimental kind.

The group of masterful troubadours included Jessica Zhou on the harp, Thomas Martin on the clarinet, Sato Knudsen on the cello, Mark Ludwig on the viola, and Si-Jing Huang and Ronan Lefkowitz on the violin. Lefkowitz also conducted the group’s final piece, “Escape Routines” which in its disharmonic balance proved to be a complex modern piece.

The piece was incredibly technical, often playing competing notes against each other, but Lefkowitz pulled it off. “Well there are beat patterns,” said Lefkowitz, when asked how he did it. “Very often when there is one voice in the group that has a very clear, simple rhythm, I’ll be watching that line. I figure if I’m together with them, the rest can fend for themselves.”

One audience member who enjoyed the concert was young Daniel Barskiy of Winchester, who was intrigued with Martin Ludwig’s new clarinet. Ludwig said the smaller clarinet was the newly released D clarinet, which produced a higher pitch than the larger B-flat clarinet. “It put a goal for me,” said Winchester.

Another was composer David Post, who attended the concert, and heard his piece “Virtual Fantasie on a Chorale” played. “It’s a real thrill,” he said about hearing his work, “and what’s even more of a thrill is to have it performed by such outstanding musicians as members of the Boston Symphony. They’re the best there are and that really means you can do a lot as a composer, because you can write anything for them and it’s no problem,” he said.

When asked if the new, quick experimental sound would take off, Lefkowitz was patient. “When you talk about contemporary music, just like contemporary anything, there are so many directions it’s going all the time,” he said. “You never know which movement might become the next movement.”