If contemporary music means to you plink, plonk, weird timing, and atonal sounds, Sunday's workshop and performance with CoMA (Contemporary Music for Amateurs) was an ear and eye opener.

About a dozen musicians from the CoMA London Ensemble, who travel the country encouraging amateur musicians of all ages and ability, and at the same time commissioning brave new musical works from a new generation of composers, arrived in Corsham.

They were joined by about twenty local musicians for a challenging day of music-making.

The non-professionals were to join the orchestra to play two of the seven pieces on the programme, In C Interlude by Michael Nyman and Chorale for the Cauldrons of Hell by Stephen Montague.

Composer Montague was also there to offer advice and later to introduce his remarkably moving work - inspired by a visit to a deserted Auschwitz as a student.

Most of them had never set eyes on the scores before and were guided by conductor Gregory Rose from sight reading to performance level in just a few short hours.

It was a remarkable achievement of co-operation and exploration of grass roots talent.

It was almost more interesting to watch the musicians interacting with each other to make the challenging compositions work, as it was to listen.

Rising young star of the violin Darragh Morgan delivered a scintillating performance of his friend Joe Cutler's Macedonia, giving all the violinists a standard to which they might aspire.

This is the groundbreaking kind of work/entertainment that festivals are about.