SUNDAY night's concert at St Michael's Church Dun Laoghaire was - well - different Choral music has been, an occasional feature of the organ recital series at St Michael's for some years; but this, concert featured, in addition, ensembles of hand bells and recorders, all courtesy of the Tokyo Oratorio Society Ladies Choir and their director Hiroshi Gunji.
To cap this, the programme was organised so that, between groups of arrangements and original compositions from the Japanese visitors, Deirdre Comerford played single items of organ music by Muffat, Buxtehude and Bach.
The result could easily have been not just different, but bizarre. Yet it worked on its own terms, largely because of the winning, warm hearted style of the visiting musicians.
Deirdre Comerford bravely dashed into Muffat's Toccata Dodecima, and even though there was too much technical splashing for comfort, she understood that this music needs to create an impression of improvisation.
In Buxtehude's Ciacona in E minor BuxWV160 and Bach's Toccata and Fugue in F BWV540, she was clearly attempting to shape on a large scale.
While she did not achieve the necessary cohesion - largely because of a failure to sustain tempo - the playing showed that this young musician (she is still a student), has ideas of her own.
The most successful of the pieces for hand bells were arrangements of Schumann's piano piece Traumerei, and of part of Smetana's Vltava, with the recorder ensemble playing the famous big tune.
I felt more absorbed as soon as the recorder ensemble moved on to Japanese pieces, and even more so when the choir presented its seven items.
These were arrangements of Japanese folk songs - most in a post Stanford, folksy style - plus a few original compositions. There were around 14 men in the group, and an attractive, sonorous sound they made; so did the 60 or so, women.
A version (anonymous) in choral competition style, of the children's folk song Zui Zui Zukkoro Bash, showed the choir's technical strengths, and there was plenty of panache in another folk setting, Kokiriko, which also served as an encore.
The society performs Handel's Messiah with the Tallaght Choral Society in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, tomorrow.