by Vanessa Keys
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"SO, what do you do?''

It's the ubiquitous question that strikes fear in the heart of anyone who struggles to explain their daily doings in fewer than 25 words (bonus points if you can avoid causing eyes to glaze over).

Those five little words cause particular dread for Aussie muso Tim Munro, the flautist for Eighth Blackbird, the US classical music sextet notorious for their indefinable genre-bending sound.

``I should be good at this by now but I still struggle,'' Brisbane-born Munro laughs when asked to describe the group's sound.

``The best way I can describe it is that it's constantly evolving from being a soft and soothing lullaby to a crazy chaotic carnival to an emotionally moving melody to a wild virtuosic romp.''

It was the group's wild diversity -- and their refusal to conform to classical music ``norms'' -- that tempted Munro to travel halfway across the world to join the Grammy Award-winning group five years ago.

Chicago is now home for the muso -- not that he or his fellow players spend much time eating home-cooked meals in the Windy City.

``We spent 200 days last year on the road,'' says Munro, whose US state tally sits at 35.

``I can't say that when I was 15, practising my flute, that

I ever imagined I'd be performing in Conway, Arkansas, or Moscow, Idaho, or Tallahassee, Florida.''

The constant travel, Munro says, is the ``best and worst thing about the job. It's such a fascinating slice of the country that we get to see.''

The group's current Australian tour marks their debut Sydney appearance. True to form, the group will perform a strikingly diverse collection of music, from minimalist composer Philip Glass' 1969 score Music In A Similar Motion to indie Dan Visconti's jazzy Fractured Jams.

`` Dan's music is just incredible,'' Munro says. ``It's like he's taken 70 years of popular music and put it through a blender, so what you get is a wild, off-kilter jam session gone wrong.''

Also on the program is the group's interpretation of Stephen Hartke's Meanwhile, a kaleidoscopic evocation of the surreal world of Asian puppet theatre.

``The idea of Stephen's piece actually mirrors the idea of our concert,'' Munro says. ``We want to create the feeling that something is going on in one room of the house but, meanwhile, if you close that door and open another there's this completely different thing on in there. Meanwhile, open another door and what's in there is even more surprising We want to open doors to sounds and experiences that constantly surprise you.''