The Zodiac Trio skimmed off the best chamber music works from early contemporary period composers Sunday, playing them nearly to perfection.

About 145 patrons witnessed the Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music event in the Abbott Auditorium at the Sheldon Museum of Art.

Alban Berg's "Adagio" for clarinet, violin and piano was both well arranged and well played. Clarinetist Kliment Krylovskiy moved the musical line confidently through the short work.

The trio took a whimsical approach to the Darius Milhaud "Suite for Clarinet, Violin, Piano, opus 157b," taken from incidental music to "Voyage without Baggage."

The overture was obviously show music, and violinist Vanessa Mollard gave it some glitz. But it was the second movement, a divertissement, where Mollard and clarinetist Krylovskiy worked the gentle counterpoint into a pretty piece.

The world knows the Aram Khachaturian "Sabre Dance." While his other works are fairly obscure, his "Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano" has notoriety as his only full-length chamber work.

Zodiac's Mollard bowed the high registers with excellence in the second movement, then worked with pianist Riko Higuma to accompany Krylovskiy in the clear Uzbek dance lines.

Bela Bartok's "Contrasts" closed the program. Krylovskiy made the difficult clarinet line sound easy, but there was an even bigger challenge in the "Piheno" movement which was ethereal and played well.

The concluding "Sebes" dance needed two violins, with no time to re-tune in the middle. Mollard checked tuning on both violins before the last movement. The resulting notes were true and clear, but Mollard risked a speeding ticket in pushing the lightning-fast tempo.

Patrons offered a rare standing ovation, and the trio brought out an Astor Piazzolla tango, "Summer" from his "Four Seasons" suite, as an encore.

Kudos for the evening go to Higuma. An accompanist at Manhattan School of Music, Higuma applies her technique with astonishing success to chamber works. It was the glue that molded the pieces of the evening together so well.