Star rating: ****

Lev Atlas was right. The music his fellow violinist Oleg Ponomarev composes with guitarist Nigel Clark for their trio, Koshka, does lend itself to expansion. What's more, Koshka can take on an extra 37 members and still retain the trio's essential fire and personality.

It was this second point that brought real satisfaction to this celebration of the Russian gypsy tradition. Atlas, Ponomarev and Clark are frighteningly virtuosic but there's huge passion, warmth and humour in what they do, too. And all of those boxes were ticked.

The orchestra at times enhanced the trio, at times simply sat and admired them, aped their mischievous pizzicato notes on a grand scale or, as on the marvellously named Miserable Hora, matched both their melancholy and their sheer speed for a bracing ending to the first half.

Lialia Shishkova's authentic gipsy troupe's arrival added spine-chilling folk balladry and more operatic-styled singing as well as traditional dancing charm - although, without wishing to belittle their contribution, the essential Koshka-with-orchestra project sounds as if it has the legs to go on from here to the wider stage.