In a matter of days, composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain is going to walk the same tightrope as many of us over the holiday season. Roumain, 53, was born to parents who were part of the first wave of Haitian immigration to suburban Skokie. He recently returned to the Chicago area with two high-profile engagements: composing a section of Lyric Opera’s “Proximity” last year and, on Sunday, curating one of the Chicago Symphony’s two concerts in its contemporary music series. Roumain’s family no longer lives in the area. But in comments to the audience at Orchestra Hall, Roumain, a self-described “blue-blooded Democrat,” was soon headed home to see his sister, a “red-blooded Republican who is very happy right now.” But Roumain — he goes by “DBR” for short — projected optimism, even chipperness, about that balancing act. Two of his three compositions on Sunday’s MusicNOW concert struck the same tone: conciliatory, often to the point of triteness. His String Quartet No. 5, which opened the concert, is dedicated to Rosa Parks. The only overtly biographical detail in the piece is a clapping and stomping second movement, a reference to Parks’ memories of childhood church services. Otherwise, the piece is classic Roumain, who carves his melodies over cycling, if square, chord progressions. The “Parks” quartet is more oblique than some of Roumain’s later work — which, on balance, is a good thing. The hot-potato pass of gestures in the first movement between violist Danny Lai, cellist James Cooper, and violinists Danny Jin and Mihaela Ionescu was effective, as were the speech-like syncopations in the second. The third ends the piece in a brief, enigmatic wisp. Though written in 2005, that quartet came off better than the fresh-ink work of the afternoon, Roumain’s “Uncertainty Our Country.” Roughly in two parts, the piano quartet begins sparsely and hazily but then transitions into the same old predictable progressions. Nor does it quite achieve the obsessive repetition of minimalist music, whose endless churning can inspire a kind of trance. Experiencing a premiere so akin to lesser movie music just a couple weeks after Osvaldo Golijov’s derivative “Megalopolis” suite — the only other CSO commission this season, despite regurgitating far craftier film scores — was, in a word, deflating. I worry that, like the Metropolitan Opera out east, the CSO is pursuing beiger and beiger music in the name of “audience appeal.” But one can look even to the institution’s recent past for music that is hummable yet fresh: the works of former composer-in-residence Jessie Montgomery, who was in attendance at Sunday’s concert. In fact, you could look to the rest of Roumain’s program. The oldest piece on a MusicNOW concert is rarely its most compelling — but then, these are abnormal times for new music at the CSO. Roumain’s “Voodoo” Violin Concerto No. 1, from 2002, is a drum kit–fueled, electrified gallop, updated for the occasion with a new, freely improvised prelude (“Revival”). At the time Roumain composed the concerto, his mother asked him, with a wince, if he had to title it “voodoo.” The piece still bristles with youthful rebellion 20 years later. On Sunday, Roumain swapped between a traditional violin and a plugged-in six-string that he shredded like an electric guitar. (In another punk-rock tic, Roumain held his bow between his teeth while strumming or tinkering with the filters.) Violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, left, performs with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Kendrick Armstrong in the CSO MusicNOW series featuring Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR): Voices of Migration & Innovation at the Chicago Symphony Center. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune) Violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, left, performs with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the CSO MusicNOW series featuring Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR): Voices of Migration & Innovation at the Chicago Symphony Center. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune) Roumain wasn’t the only musician to cut loose in “Voodoo.” In the inner movement, “Moment,” he improvised duets with the CSO musicians — a rare mode for the classically trained musicians. For some, like Rob Kissinger, trading his upright for an electric bass, and clarinetist John Bruce Yeh, the changeup was second nature. Others let their classical training seep, deliciously, into their spotlights: a blazing virtuoso intercession by Ionescu and lyrical, luscious lines by Cooper and pianist Daniel Schlosberg. Conductor Kedrick Armstrong, now in his first season at the Oakland Symphony, guided the work with an encouraging, clear hand. “Voodoo” matched the chutzpah of the two non-Roumain pieces on the program, Brittany J. Green’s “shift.unravel.BREAK” (2022) and Allison Loggins-Hull’s “Homeland (2018). The conceit of Green’s piece is right there in the title: Its melody gathers itself from nothing, then shatters just after gaining momentum. It trickles to a close with the violin and piano in a high unison. The piece is short but commanding. “Homeland,” clocking in at about seven minutes on Sunday, is inspired by Loggins-Hull’s musings about what home might mean when one’s home no longer exists. Loggins-Hull and fellow flutist-composer Nathalie Joachim perform together as Flutronix, and her expertise shows: Few composers alive write as exquisitely and creatively for flute as the duo. Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson played the keening, multiphonic work with the peerless eloquence once has come to associate with the CSO principal. Violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain performs with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Kendrick Armstrong in the CSO MusicNOW series at the Chicago Symphony Center. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform in the CSO MusicNOW series featuring Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR): Voices of Migration & Innovation at the Chicago Symphony Center. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, center, performs with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Kendrick Armstrong in the CSO MusicNOW series. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Daniel Bernard Roumain hugs Mihaela Ionescu after performing with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Kendrick Armstrong in the CSO MusicNOW series featuring Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR): Voices of Migration & Innovation at the Chicago Symphony Center on Nov. 24, 2024. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, left, performs with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the CSO MusicNOW series at the Chicago Symphony Center on Nov. 24, 2024. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform in the CSO MusicNOW series featuring Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR): Voices of Migration & Innovation at the Chicago Symphony Center. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Flutist Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson performs in the CSO MusicNOW series featuring Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR): Voices of Migration & Innovation at the Chicago Symphony Center. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain performs with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Kendrick Armstrong in the CSO MusicNOW series featuring Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR): Voices of Migration & Innovation at the Chicago Symphony Center Sunday Nov. 24, 2024, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform in the CSO MusicNOW series featuring Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR): Voices of Migration & Innovation at the Chicago Symphony Center. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain takes a bow with Conductor Kendrick Armstrong after performing with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the CSO MusicNOW series at the Chicago Symphony Center on Nov. 24, 2024. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Show Caption1 of 10Violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain performs with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Kendrick Armstrong in the CSO MusicNOW series at the Chicago Symphony Center. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)Expand Both contributions were so engrossing that one walked away wanting more from Green and Loggins-Hull. Instead, we got a whole lot of Roumain — which, as the concert’s curator, is his prerogative. Jimmy López Bellido will thread the same needle in March when he curates the season’s other MusicNOW concert, again mixing his own compositions and others’. All that poses a valid question to MusicNOW. If the series pursues a guest curator model until at least 2027, when music director Klaus Mäkelä (we hope) installs another composer-in-residence, are the concerts intended to be composer portraits? Or are they essentially playlists of the curator’s current interests, as previous composers-in-residence tended to treat them? Right now, it seems to be a little of both. And that can be as hard to reconcile as political rivalries at the dinner table. The next MusicNOW is “Jimmy López: Inner Dialogues” at 3 p.m. March 23 at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; tickets $30-$50; more information at cso.org. Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic. The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism helps fund our classical music coverage. The Chicago Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.