Carlos Nunez: Galicia's answer to either Peter Pan or Jimi Hendrix - depending on your particular mythological preferences.

Carlos Nuñez , Beo Celtic

Music Festival, NCH

With an all-but packed house, temperatures were running high long before Galicia's answer to either Peter Pan or Jimi Hendrix (depending on your particular mythological preferences), Carlos Nuñez, made an appearance. It was a brave Gavin Whelan who took to the stage armed with nothing more than a few whistles and Liam Whelan, guitarist, for company.

Reeling in an eclectic repertoire that owed a particular debt to Mary Bergin and Josephine Marsh, Whelan shimmied from a magnificently grounded reading of the slow air, Bean Dubh An Ghleanna to a mosquito-itch of jigs and reels that scurried ever more urgently skywards, their intricate curlicues lost in the nether regions of the concert hall.

Nuñez, ever the consummate showman, took possession of the entire venue from the moment he leapt on stage. His theatrical approach to both the handling and the playing of his multitudinous instruments owed as much to Marcel Marceau as to Paddy Molony. Whether it was low whistle, tin whistle, recorder or gaita, the Galician bagpipes (of which he played remarkably little, considering his reputation is largely built on his mastery of this flamboyant instrument), Nuñez infused every set of tunes with a melodramatic overlay that shifted even the subtlest of slow airs into overdrive.

Nuñez's compass swings wide, capturing the feral Latin rhythms of Cuba alongside the military precision of Brittany, the rabid passions of Galicia and the freewheeling melodies of Irish traditional music.

Nuñez's eclecticism was incredibly seductive, and his evident delight in his own virtuosity was hugely infectious, causing stalls and balcony inhabitants alike to metamorphose into a mass of human clapometers.

The blithe willingness of over 30 punters to join Nuñez's band on stage for an Iberian alternative to the Seige of Ennis was further evidence of how effortlessly this Pied Piper could seduce the multitude.

His two fiddlers, Paloma and Begonias leant feisty support across a frighteningly diverse repertoire, Begonias offering a divine rendition of Cantilleras, that reeked of Moorish influences.

With his brother Xurxo on drums and bodhrán, offering equally dramatic percussion, and Nuñez stalwart Pancho Álvarez using his mandolin to act as a measured counterpoint to his master's flamboyance on everything from the sublime Camino de Santiago to the Salamanca reel, it was a night for grand gestures, high notes and little in the way of subtlety.

Which is a pity, because Nuñez's genius is everywhere to be seen and heard, on gaita, whistle and tin whistle. With an entire set list delivered in gluttonous proportions, palates were simply overwhelmed - and over-stimulated. - Siobhan Long

Ulster Orchestra - Celso Antunes

Ulster Hall, Belfast

Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brasileiras No 9. Piazzolla - Anoncagua (Bandoneon Concerto). Revueltas - El renacuajo paseador. Guarnieri - Abertura concertante. Piazzolla - The Four Seasons.

The fourth concert in the current series of BBC Invitation Concerts devoted to Spanish and Latin American music forsook Spain and Portugal for Mexico and South America, bringing a welcome change of tone. Altogether this music was more raw and vibrant than the cultured but sometimes bland works on offer in the previous week's concert.

Energy in itself is not enough - witness the Guarnieri Concert Overture, where the simple basic material was overworked and one eventually tired of the athletically pounding timpani.

There was just as much vitality, and more musical interest, in Revueltas' evocation of Mexican street music, with its stripped-down orchestra of violins, double basses and brass, and in the last of Villa-Lobos' nine homages to Bach, where the Ulster Orchestra strings were particularly resonant.

But the main attraction for many would have been the Argentinian cult figure Astor Piazzolla, whose heady fusion of popular and classical styles has found a new crossover public.

In the outer movements of the concerto, Dermot Dunne's accordion managed to hold its own against the orchestra, but the lightly-scored slow movement worked best, both as music and in terms of balance. Under Celso Antunes the Ulster Orchestra tackled The Four Seasons, an orchestration of four of Piazzolla's best-known tangos, with plenty of rhythmic zest.

But arranger Carlos Franzetti evidently believed that the instruments of the orchestra were there to be used, preferably all at the same time, and a little more light and shade would have been welcome. - Dermot Gault

Nuevo Tango Quartet

Elmwood Hall, Belfast

Piazzolla - Fugato. Tanti Anni Prima. Verano Porteno. Nuestro Tiempo. Tango del Diabolo. Resurreccion del Angel. Tanguedia. Oblivion. Contrabajissimo.

Astor Piazzolla once made a recording for the BBC in which he kept murmuring the word 'brothel' to himself while playing his beloved bandoneon, and his 'nuevo tango' is sometimes marketed as the music of seedy dives and brothels, as if the audience wanted to indulge in a bit of vicarious sleaze.

But Piazzolla's fusion of traditional Latin-American tango with classical styles and the modernist influences he had encountered in Paris is also, in its way, sophisticated art music, and in this BBC Invitation Concert the 'nuevo tango' showed itself capable of great stylistic range, taking in the brash, maliciously academic pastiche of Fugato, the slightly sentimental Tanti Anni Prima, and the emotional ambiguity of Tanguedia, with its overtones of 'tragedia' and 'comedia'.

But while the surface may be abrasive or self-consciously modernist, as in the opening bars of the Tango del Diabolo, underneath it all Piazzolla remains nostalgic and even traditional, as in the Baroque-inspired Resurreccion del Angel, described as a 'Bachianos argentiensis', or the mellow Verano Porteno.

The last-named piece had featured in the previous evening's Ulster Orchestra concert in an orchestral arrangement, but seemed more authentic when played by Dermot Dunne (accordion), Svetlana Rudenko (piano), Kenneth Rice (violin) and Malachy Robinson (double bass), the last two of whom are also members of the Irish Chamber Orchestra.

The quartet produced some extraordinary sonorities and also provided quite a bit of individual virtuosity, the double bass for example being featured in the final Contrabajissimo. - Dermot Gault