Ulrike Klein’s Ngeringa Herb Farm concerts seem a distant memory now that the lowly farm building that used to be there has metamorphosed into the concert hall we know today. Adorning the slopes that rise up to Mount Barker Summit, UKARIA Cultural Centre continues to inspire breaths of admiration just as it did when it opened a decade ago.

Klein’s concept has, in essence, remained the same; Anton Johnson’s architectural masterpiece might have doubled the seating capacity and given patrons a dream-like view out to nature, but the concerts are still about offering highest quality chamber music in an intimate, almost private atmosphere.

It remains a wonder that this multi-million dollar structure is not located in the Adelaide CBD, which so desperately needs a dedicated public concert hall, but to be tucked away up here in the Adelaide Hills still feels like a slice of European excellence, while UKARIA’s record for choosing the cream of artists has made their concert series feel like a year-round festival.

But a 10th anniversary celebration calls for something special. Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto was flown in to curate two concerts, while Kate Miller-Heidke and Iain Grandage devised another in this three-day extravaganza.

These are star musicians, and so were their guests. On Friday night Kuusisto gathered up a pile of his friends to join him: the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s cellist Timo-Veikko Valve, violist Liisa Pallandi and double bassist Maxime Bibeau, the London-based violinist Emily Sun, and the Australian String Quartet.

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Quirky in his musical taste, little of the music Kuusisto chose was familiar except for one item, Matthew Hindson’s Third String Quartet. Commissioned by Ulrike Klein and Ngeringa Arts in 2015, it served as an appropriate centrepiece. Inspired by the views around Mount Barker, it starts off as a bafflingly aggressive work until one realises what its subject matter is really about: Hindson expresses the dislocation of how ancestral land was grabbed from Peramangk and Kaurna people by white settlers. The ASQ’s performance was white-hot in intensity, but melted into a state of introspection in its third movement. Entitled ‘The idea’, its winding solo melody in the viola was played outstandingly by Chris Cartlidge.

Excitability was in the air in this opening concert, mainly emanating from Kuusisto himself. He set a cracking pace with Sun in a rarity, Duet No. 6 Op. 5, by the 18^th century Italian composer Maddalena Sirmen. Superficially it resembles Haydn, but its language is pushed to the extreme with exuberant interplay between the two instruments.

Kuusisto is interesting; his on-stage manner gets comical at times, and his musicianship is beguiling. His bowing has the speed and facility of a folk fiddler, and it’s beautiful to watch. Sun was right up to him in this duet, albeit with her more traditional, schooled style of violin playing.

Introducing himself as “a random guy from Finland”, Kuusisto revealed more of his uniqueness in Canadian composer Ellen Reid’s solo piece Desiderium. In this theatrical composition of sliding pitches and rhythmic tricks, he acquitted himself with poised balance and the lightest, cleanest bowing.

ACO followers who have long admired Bibeau’s fine double bass playing will have been interested to hear his big solo in this program. Big was indeed the word: his Gasparo da Salò instrument from 1585 is an incredible beast – recently it was added to UKARIA’s collection, adding to the five Guadagnini instruments it already looks after.

In American composer Missy Mazzoli’s Dark with Excessive Bright, co-commissioned recently by the ACO, the instrument’s growling power seemed to activate the air space in a physical way, augmented by another monster historic double bass played by Robert Nairn. Yet what most impressed were the singing line and varied colours that Bibeau, with his elite skill, was able to create up high.

Olli Mustonen’s Nonet No. 2 was the most rewarding composition. As many will remember from last year when he came out to curate UKARIA 24, this Finnish composer is a master at reigniting the spirit of Beethoven and Schubert in his piano and chamber works. His Nonet from 2000 does similar things in a way that directly reminds one of Schubert: its four-note motif and circulating chords in fact draw from the Adagio movement in the Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major, Op.163. Violinist Kristian Winther joined the ensemble in a passionately glorious performance of a work that genuinely stands the test of time.

After this dazzling event, all one can hope for is that UKARIA’s next 10 years measure up just as well.

This performance took place at UKARIA Cultural Centre on Friday August 22