WHILE rampaging humour and musicianship characterised the RSAMD's showcase for its woodwind department on Friday, the event, with four very different pieces, was so entertaining that it might have disguised a couple of serious points about the concert.

The first is straightforward. One of the toughest tricks to pull off in music is humour. That all the pieces in the academy's line-up pressed the right buttons reflected the quality of the playing.

Rory Boyle's witty little burlesque on Cinderella, conducted by the composer, who joined in the vocal rap with his full-on band, drew its vicious wee joke from Roald Dahl's acid take on the fairy tale.

J Simon van der Walt's highly original Society for Classical and Authentic Music presented its ritualised pastiches on distorted classical clichés with a po-faced theatricality that was pure Zen.

At another extreme of wit, Jan Petraski's Quango for woodwind quintet represented all the stereotypes you can imagine at a pedantically boring board meeting, and succeeded in lampooning them all in purely instrumental terms in a dazzling display of unconducted ensemble playing.

The main point of the concert is that it was a demonstration of the sheer confidence and panache with which the army of students delivered the material. Let's hope their assessors took note.