Music Reviews

Oct 18, 2001 - The New Foundation Orchestra and Trumpeter Mark Lord

By Jack Neal

What isn't made clear in the hoopla over the founding of a new orchestra, is why it's being founded and who exactly is sponsoring it.

The Foundation Orchestra played its premiere concert Monday night (10/15/2001) at 6 p.m. at Reno's Peppermill Hotel Casino. The program featured, starred actually, trumpeter Mark Lord playing a trumpet concerto he commissioned ten years ago. The Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra, "In Praise of Human Spiritual Rights," was written by, and Monday night conducted by, Gary Robert Buchanan.

In addition to the concerto, the short program - just about an even hour - included Buchanan's "Triumphal March: 'The Spirit of Exploration'" and a Scott Joplinesque rag called "Ragtime Nightingale" by Joseph F. Lamb. The Lamb was arranged by David C. Bugli, conductor of the Carson City Symphony, who also conducted what he had arranged. It was pleasantly brought off.

The program seems to have been underwritten by the Andean Explorers Foundation and Ocean Sailing Club, which had an awards dinner immediately following the concert. The concert was introduced by the Foundation Orchestra Association's chairman, the engaging and charming Sean Savoy. Scuttlebutt has it that Savoy has also founded a church of which he has been named a bishop. That, perhaps, including current world events indicates why the event was called "A Concert for World Peace." Since I'm not an investigative reporter and was called in as a critic, the background of the whos, whats, and whys of the Foundation Orchestra as a new performing arts group in Reno are things I know nothing about.

What I do know is that the 44-piece orchestra, liberally sprinkled with members of the Reno Philharmonic, is quite competent. It sounded just fine and it looked equally as fine. In short, the concert was a nicely turned out affair and well attended.

What it wasn't was smashingly thrilling to experience. Buchanan's writing is lush, a really rich sound, and can be affecting. Buchanan's approach to his own music, however, seemed a bit on the tepid side - too slow and undernourished from the point of view of vitality. Composers are often not the best purveyors of what they have written. That's possibly the case with Buchanan. One can hardly fault tempos when the composer is at the helm, but nonetheless I found most of the evening under Buchanan's baton to be thick and too slow; lovely and laid back, but thick and slow.

About Mark Lord, the evening's soloist, the concerto Buchanan has written isn't so much a display concerto as it is a concerto with unmistakable religious overtones. In three movements, "Proclamation" - intended (according to the program's notes) as being in classical style, "Prayer and Vigilance" - intended as being in high romantic style, and "Freedom Dance" - intended as being in 20th century style, the concerto seemed more a blur of styles, just slight hints, than of a clearly defined work providing three distinct and unique utterances.

All that having been said, the concerto is extremely listenable. That it's a tour de force for the soloist, is without doubt. It's very lyric; the long, long lines and the sheer length of the concerto (slightly over forty minutes) is a backbreaker (more aptly a lipsmasher) for a trumpeter. The soloist is kept busy from beginning to end. From a descriptive perspective, what comes to mind is Richard Rodgers's lush scoring and melodic grace in his "Victory at Sea." That's an apt description for an explorer's club concerto. The concerto has a lyrical seaworthy quality throughout that's entirely captivating. The last movement, the 20th century one, did attempt to break the work's romantic mold somewhat, it's more bombastic, but by-and-large the concerto remains overwhelming romantic in nature.

Lord is an excellent trumpeter, who fully does justice to the work he commissioned. Monday's performance was the world premier of the concerto with full orchestra. The concert's encore was a rich sounding version of "America the Beautiful" for orchestra with something akin to a trumpet obligato. Presumably it was arranged by Buchanan. It has the Buchanan sound.

The concert was recorded in both video and audio format. For information about either recording or future Foundation Orchestra Association events call 775-348-1818.