Terje Isungset with one of his ice horns
Turner Sims, Southampton
By Vicki Harding
This concert by Terje Isungset and Maria Skranes was well attended by an audience eagerly expecting ‘a chiming, intimate and utterly beautiful world of sound’. Isungset is apparently one of Europe’s most accomplished and innovative percussionists, as well as being a pioneer of ice instruments. We were told to wear warm clothing, but in the event coats and hats were rapidly removed. The first half consisted of Isungset’s ‘Tribute to Nature’, in which he required us to use our imaginations. As percussion instruments go, neither blocks of wood nor granite and slate are going to sound like anything but that, even when spiced up by the odd sheep bell. The goat’s horn made a lovely note, but while the audience remained optimistic, they were unconvinced.
The second part of the evening promised extraordinary feats of sculpture, the atmosphere chilled by the team of fur-coated assistants struggling to pull a couple of industrial-size ice blocks onto the platform. Each block glowed icy blue, offset by a flush of pink sunset. Then some small rectangles of ice were laid reverently on a frame like a xylophone. Each resonated pleasingly when struck with great ceremony by Isungset, by now hidden almost completely under a fur hood. He also spent a lot of time stirring a heap of ice cubes with a stick whilst the vocalist sang.
The trog then produced the supreme ice sculpture out of an icebox: a lovely horn which made a surprisingly nice sound for a solid block. Good use was made of linked light effects throughout, and on the whole it was a pleasing spectacle, if devoid of any atmosphere. Isungset is a good showman with nothing to say. 
The original version of this article incorrectly mentioned the use of synthesisers and artificial ice. Isungset would like to stress that he only uses natural ice. We apologise for the error.