Music Reviews

Mar 14, 2005 - The Reno Chamber Orchestra's sinfully sensational strings and percussion program

By Jack Neal

Let those without sin cast the first stone!

No stones were needed, nor left unturned, Saturday night (3/12/05) at Nightingale Concert Hall as the Reno Chamber Orchestra unveiled its all strings and percussion program of Mozart (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik), Bernstein (Serenade after Plato's Symposium), and Shchedrin (Carmen Suite).

As the wizard of programmatic invention, conductor Theodore Kuchar has once again followed the yellow brick road to music making with a freshness and allure that's irresistible. Violinist Philippe Quint was on hand to flesh out the Bernstein's hauntingly rhapsodic nature. Percussionists Robert Lightfoot, Rich Havens, Sharon Hickox-Young, Eric Middleton and Karen Vibe were on hand to enhance all they touched with gloriously refined work on both the Bernstein and the Shchedrin.

Bright, moving and entertaining the concert was at all times virtuosically brought off. Quint's velvety violin sound on the Bernstein and his ardor at bringing the passion of the work to life made the Serenade as emotionally moving as it was intellectually fascinating. Quint's performance was matched perfectly by Kuchar's interpretive collaboration and the orchestra's sensitive responsiveness.

The Bernstein is as edgy as it's introspective. There is at one moment a feeling of disjointedness, especially with the happenings in the percussion, and then Bernstein's writing pulls together not unlike a camera with a blurred image miraculously snapping into focus. To make matters even more intriguing both images, the blurred and the focused, are beautiful in their own right. A performance of the Bernstein is fraught with dangerous corners. Each was managed with the kind of assurance that separates a merely competent presentation from an inspired one.

Equally as impressive was Shchedrin's revamping of Bizet's "Carmen" for ballet, and - further - as a suite for orchestra. Still intact is the passion of Bizet's great score. The dramatic use of percussion in contrast to the innate lyricism of the strings is a theatrical juxtaposition of textures and colors only a genius could have invented.

The genius of Shchedrin's entrancing manipulation of themes and snippets of ideas into an artistic cohesion that's at once so entertaining and so profound is by itself thrilling. The re-creation of those ideas into a performance vehicle that also thrills is what great concertizing is about. And that's what the performance was - thrilling.

Kuchar's artistry, his creativity as a musician, is the driving force behind this extreme makeover of the Reno Chamber Orchestra. Always a good orchestra comptently conducted, the RCO under Kuchar's leadership is stepping across the threshold of being a solid regional ensemble into the lofty world of an orchestra with a high quality international reputation. Kuchar's keen musicianship and programming are making that difference.

Much to his credit, Kuchar isn't a conductor for the merely different and the offbeat. His Mozart - this time the Eine Kliene Nachtmusik - is ravishing everytime it is programmed. The tried and true under maestro's baton always turns out to be the fresh and exciting.

And so it was once again.

The Reno Chamber Orchestra's next concert will be April 30, 2005, will feature Leonard Nimoy as guest narrator, and the music of Ullman (The Lay of Love and Death of Christopher Rilke), Beethoven (Incidental Music to Egmont), and the orchestra's college concerto competition winner. All Reno Chamber Orchestra subscription concerts are played at Nightingale Concert Hall, 900 N. Virginia Street, Reno, Nv. For information all 775-348-9413.