Here, less was truly more

Minimalism, though relatively free of any particular spiritual creed, can sound right at home in church. At least that seemed a valid notion Saturday in Santa Monica’s First Presbyterian Church.

The new chamber music concert series known as “Jacaranda, Music at the Edge of Santa Monica” opened with the rippling, rhythmically charged music of Minimalist pillars Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, whose rolling, hypnotic structures demand a meditative spirit to be properly appreciated.

While no neat primer in what makes Minimalism tick, the program offered some important touchstones of the genre, from Riley’s proto-Minimalist 1964 concept piece, “In C,” to Reich’s “Clapping Music,” and a rarity by Glass, the movement’s bestseller.

Reference points seem urban and spiritual in Glass’ too rarely heard 1981 piece “Mad Rush,” originally written for a visit to New York City by the Dalai Lama and premiered in St. John’s Chapel. In the Santa Monica space, it sounded gripping and vibrant, given the spatial splendor of the in-house pipe organ, played with illuminating care by organist Mark Hilt.

The room filled with shimmering timbres and a lovely maze of Glass-ian musical traffic. Written during a rich seminal period for the composer, around the time of his definitive “Glassworks,” the work benefits from his refined musical vocabulary, which he hasn’t strayed much from or improved upon since.

Opening the concert with Reich’s “Clapping Music,” fastidious clappers Fred Strickler and Linda Sohl Donnell were rightly credited in the program with “body music.” This 1972 piece is a primitive “hands-on” work, its rhythms shifting in focus and synchronization, its result cleverly blending the mesmeric and the rational.

Nine musicians gathered for “In C,” with unusual colors here including electric bass (Arthur Jarvinen), bassoon (Sara Schoenbeck) and the resident organ (Hilt). They joined a party of loosely choreographed, short fragments -- built around the anchor of xylophonist Robert Fernandez’s insistent “pulse” of C eighth notes -- for 45 minutes, as tonality gradually slipped “out of C” as part of the desired time-space warp effect.

“In C” remains a fascinating historical artifact: quirky, cool, and essential to music’s evolution.