Before the altar of St George's Church and beneath a cut-out of a golden Jesus, stood the Bunun men.

Small and Polynesian in appearance, decked out in red headbands and beads, they swayed almost imperceptibly from side to side, emitting a melancholic, polyphonic chant.

Then the smiling Bunun women joined the stage and the close choral harmonies became more joyous, though no less complex.

Indigenous people of Taiwan, the Bunun sang about gathering the bean harvest and women turning into rainbows, accompanied by cellist David Darling and a string quartet.