WHATEVER next at the Contemporary Music Festival? A performance called ‘show me your second face’ by the female Japanese pianist and visual artist Tomoko Mukaiyama, combining elements of the traditional classical recital, performance art, and a fashion show, that’s what.

A short prelude of loud house music reminded us that what we were about to see and hear was not exactly what we might expect to encounter at this sort of music festival.

Then, playing Bach quietly and reflectively, Mukaiyama and her grand piano were at first completely ensconced within a huge pile of interior-lit white tulle, like a space igloo from the film Barbarella.

As she played, the pianist was very gradually revealed wearing a long white gown from beneath the mound of translucent material, pulled away by mysterious invisible pulleys.

Standing on her piano stool, arms raised high in the air, she was then unrobed from above by equally mysterious means.

Her unfurled gown remained suspended in the air as part of what was described in the programme as a ‘fashion-installation’.

Still floating on a sea of billowing tulle, Mukaiyama played a seamless sequence of contemporary piano music and electronic sounds, some composed by herself.

It was a meditative and intermittently powerful sonic and visual journey, at the end of which the pianist stood, walked to the edge of the stage, and enigmatically lay down to sleep. Eat your heart out Myleene Klass.

Designed by Niels Klavers and Astrid van Engelen, Mukaiyama’s stylish performance lasted only an hour.

But at this festival knowing when to stop is a creditable quality not possessed by many of its participants.