The Hebrides Ensemble specialise in 20th-century (as opposed to broadly "contemporary") chamber music, with a forthcoming season that contains a couple heavyweights of the repertoire: Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, Schoenberg's expressionist melodrama Pierrot Lunaire. This season opener was more of a bits-and-pieces lineup of American pioneers that included music by Ives, Adams, Reich and, bizarrely, Jennifer Higdon.

But it was the unique and vivid sound world of George Crumb that made the real impression. Voice of the Whale (Vox Balaenae) is a surprisingly literal work from 1971 – literal in that it mimics whale song via humming down a flute, cello harmonics and strummed piano strings, and the effect was surprisingly accurate. Crumb instructs that the stage be lit dark blue – like an ocean, and that the musicians wear masks to depersonalise the proceedings (natural forces are, he says, impersonal). I'm not sure how much the theatrical gimmicks added, but the music, and the sense of otherworldly reverie that went with it, was captivating and beautifully done.

The rest of the programme dotted around the last century of American music, from Charles Ives's Piano Trio – written in 1911 and played as a full-blooded monument to Romanticism – to Higdon's inane Smash, which came across more as a stubborn scales practise than the intended burst of "intensity and forward momentum". The catchy rhythms and wholesome harmonies of John Adam's Road Movies suggested Americana at its most picture-perfect, delivered with beefy, unbridled vigour by violinist Alexander Janiczek. Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint was given superb treatment by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's principal clarinettist, Yann Ghiro. His creamy sound and unshakable technique made the task, which involves prerecording 10 interlocking tracks then adding an 11th live, look far easier than it is.