Sarasota Orchestra offers a joyous display of artistry in Masterworks series opener
For those of us still reeling from the untimely death of the Sarasota Orchestra’s new music director Bramwell Tovey in July, Friday’s first concert of their Masterworks season could well have been tinged with grief. Instead, the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall was filled with sublime sound bubbling with joy emanating from an orchestra of musicians who still make one’s heart race with their virtuosity and artistry.
Guest conductor David Alan Miller, a lifelong proponent of contemporary American composers, let the orchestra spill forth with awakening energy and sparkle in “A Joyous Trilogy” by Quinn Mason, a highly acclaimed 26-year-old composer from Dallas.
The music rises like rays of sun to come alive with bright colors and only a hint of structure. Yet it flows easily into a more reflective, almost melancholy reverie featuring a smooth solo trombone and other winds weaving in and out. The Trilogy wraps up this tapestry of light and color with short dynamic surges buzzing with intensity.
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A last-minute replacement
From this brilliant refraction of light, the evening pivoted to the cool forest music of Norwegian Edvard Grieg. Jon Kimura Parker was the last-minute replacement for pianist Joyce Yang who was unable to perform due to an injury. Nonetheless, Parker’s performance of Grieg’s monumental Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16, was a pure joy to hear.
Despite the concerto’s familiarity, the many beautiful melodies and colors feel fresh and vibrant in the hands of Parker and the Sarasota musicians. The first movement is so rich in dignified character it can satisfy on its own. The cadenza alone is riveting.
The gravitas of the first movement is contrasted in the graceful benediction of the second movement where strings in the forefront with gentle solos from cello, horn, flute and more weave in before an ecstatic piano interlude.
The dance rhythms and insistent drive of the final movement are a jolt to the system, but what an invigorating ride! Parker lives up to his accolades and then some. Addressing the audience after the ovations, he graciously introduced his encore, Scott Joplin’s Solace, a another taste of heaven much needed before diving into the lunacy of the Berlioz to follow.
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Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 by the still young Hector Berlioz may sound at times like a drug-addled nightmare, but it is actually a brilliant display of genius by a breakout artist. No one had used an orchestra before the way Berlioz did in 1830 and it was sensational. Nearly 200 years later and the music is still fresh and shocking with its raw intensity and mood swings.
Having steeped himself in the world of Berlioz, Miller was at home with the wide-ranging elements from tender love themes, a delicate waltz, to a death march and macabre brewings of the otherworld. Then there are the details of the performance left squarely in the able hands of every member of the Sarasota Orchestra. This is an expert ensemble adept with the alchemy of turning unusual technical challenges into a fully fleshed out story of unrequited love and a tortured mind.
There was a clear collaborative chemistry between the orchestra and the conductor Miller. In fact, Miller was a finalist 26 years ago in the search for a music director that led to the appointment of appointment of Leif Bjaland. Miller had a strong affinity for the ensemble then and now, with an orchestra nearly unrecognizable from that former self, there is still a collaborative bond that clearly wove a spell for the audience.
‘Symphonie Fantastique’
Sarasota Orchestra Masterworks, guest conductor David Alan Miller, guest pianist Jon Kimura Parker Parker. Reviewed Nov. 4. Through Sunday. Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $37-$99. 941-953-3434; sarasotaorchestra.org