When the composer, sound engineer and producer Matthew Herbert launched his big band in 2002, his use of electronica tended to constrain the live playing of his 16 musicians. Since then the band has taken the upper hand and, dancing jerkily around his machinery, Herbert applies his feverish ingenuity to extending its sound world in dozens of creative directions.

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the British Council, Herbert took centre stage after brief opening sets from Justin Adams, Karine Polwart, Kamilya Jubran, the Guillemots and Penguins, each of which might have made an excellent concert in its own right. But Herbert had bigger, better plans for a dazzling show. On came the Goldsmith’s Vocal Ensemble (75 of them, to make a birthday point) and the charismatic singer Eska Mtungwazi.

Far from just standing at the back and singing, the choir was brilliantly choreographed into the social and political messages embedded in Herbert’s music. He’s long used a gag in which a newspaper is torn up and sampled to create a percussive soundtrack, but, using the sonically obliging Daily Mail, the choir turned this into mass origami and confetti making, singing, tearing and moving in perfect synchronisation. Eerie booming noises followed as they blew across plastic bottles to make a point about world water shortage, and Herbert added emotional depth in a piece where an electronic pip signified 100 deaths in Iraq. While the pips became so frequent as to make an almost continuous tone, the band played a bleakly haunting funeral ode. It took six minutes to mark all the casualties.

Alongside the profound moments, Herbert showed that he’s no slouch as a writer for contemporary big bands. The most abiding sensation was the glorious fun of making music, as his instrumentalists blew lustily and, fronted by Mtungwazi in gloriously eccentric attire, his singers moved, waved, donned hoods and sunglasses, made paper walls and sang their hearts out. They were still singing backstage long after the final encore.

Afterwards a stranger from the row behind tapped me on the shoulder. “Fantastic!” he said. He was right.

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