This was a BBC National Orchestra of Wales concert not quite like any other, its CoLaboratory label suggesting both collaborative and experimental elements and highlighting the varied talents of the French-Irish conductor and violinist Fiona Monbet. Her precise conducting of Darius Milhaud’s ballet suite La Création du Monde – inspired by his encounter with jazz in 1920s New York, with its sensuous fusion of lyrical lines and jazz-inflected harmonies – helped set up the rest of the programme.

Iain Ballamy was the soloist in the premiere of Luke Styles’ saxophone concerto Tracks in the Orbit. In three movements entitled respectively Mill, Devotional and Whirlpool, Styles had fashioned a work indulging all of Ballamy’s laidback virtuosity, improvisatory instincts and his characteristic tone, velvet but edgy when needed. Yet the sense was sometimes of music – and perhaps Ballamy, too – needing to break the constraints and take off. At the very end came a sudden effusion of orchestra and soloist together, but short-lived and fizzling out.

Having Ballamy on the spot, as it were, was clearly too good an opportunity to miss and he was called on to add extra colour to Monbet’s own suite, Trois Reflets. As a violinist, she maintains two parallel disciplines, classical and jazz – in the latter hailed as spiritual daughter by her mentor, the late Didier Lockwood, whom the legendary Stéphane Grappelli regarded as his spiritual son – but this piece was also a reflection of Monbet’s growing aspirations as a composer. Embracing a succession of differing styles – blues, bossa nova and Irish folk among them – it defied categorisation, a meandering and eventually slightly straggling musical parade. Monbet was obviously central to it all, an unassuming and mesmerising presence. Only conducting when necessary, she was by turns a brilliant violin soloist, with amplification helping to characterise her sound; a duettist in dynamic partnership with Ballamy; and perhaps most authentic in the solo bursts in harness with her own jazz quartet, pianist, Auxane Cartigny, bassist Arthur Hennebique and drummer Philippe Maniez.

If Monbet proved her naturally multifaceted musicianship, the suite also showcased the BBC NOW in full chameleon mode: chamber orchestra, big band, Mantovani strings, Tijuana brass, Irish fiddlers … nothing defeated them. Occasionally, however, they were left redundant, albeit happily appreciating the frontliners. It was certainly an evening of great fun, if not always great music.

• Available on BBC Sounds.