A small but committed crowd attended the second installment of the three-part series “Notable Women” by the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble at the Chelsea Art Museum on Saturday. Featuring only music written by female composers, the three programs roughly divide into past, present, and future. For part two, curator and composer in residence Joan Tower programmed five contemporary works and secured the presence of all members of the quintet to introduce their pieces.

The first half of this recital featured two very impressive works, the first of which was Jennifer Higdon’s Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano. Ms. Higdon didn’t say whether she sees different colors when she hears various chords, the way Jean Sibelius did, but she did mention in her introduction that she grew up in a house of painters and thus took as her programmatic material the two colors pale yellow and fiery red. This was fortuitous for a chamber concert in an art gallery and the first movement — the yellow — was a thing of rare beauty in the accomplished hands of Krzysztof Koznik, violin, Daire FitzGerald, cello, and Margaret Kampmeier, piano. The red was a little repetitive, but did have an infectious propulsion.

Ms. Tower was represented by her String Quartet No. 1, subtitled “Night Field.” This is an intense work with a solid feel for the nocturnal and the foreboding. Violinist Katharina Grossmann and violist Louise Schulman joined the two aforementioned string players for a drilled down and dug in performance.

The other work before intermission was an irritating set of “lieder” that contained every tired, post-Webern cliché. Composer Tania Leon not only bored but also did a disservice to her source material, the moving poetry of Rita Dove. Where Ms. Dove was sensitive, Ms. Leon was self-aggrandizing, showy, making Singin’ Sepia just a monotonous parade of virtually unsingable intervals. Soprano Tony Arnold had to fight both this unfriendly writing and some very loud sirens from the highway in back of the museum, but did so with solid professionalism.

After the break was a world premiere, “I and Thou” for two cellos by Kati Agocs. Myron Lutzke joined Ms. FitzGerald for a work that was suitably plangent but tainted by minimalist fundamentalism. Any one passage was serviceable, but the constant repetition quickly proved uninteresting. Ms. Agocs spoke of going for something new. She didn’t make it.

Finally, another Piano Trio closed out the day. This one was by Libby Larsen, a composer of growing renown. Written while she was working on two different operas about the nature of time, “Mrs. Dalloway” and “A Wrinkle in Time,” the piece held many hidden treasures. Perhaps it is not immediately appealing or intelligible, but it did pique my interest and I would love to hear it again. Opportunities to experience these types of current pieces are, unfortunately, few and far between, so hat’s off to St. Luke’s.

In her opening remarks Ms. Tower noted that she had been very surprised at how many people inquired as to what was the necessity of offering a series only about women. I’m surprised that she is surprised. After all, imagine the hue and cry there would have been had someone fashioned a concert that included works by only dead white men.