Music Reviews

Mar 27, 2006 - Violinist Helen Kim is the high note for the Reno Chamber Orchestra's season closer

By Jack Neal

Helen Kim may have come to the year's final series of two Reno Chamber Orchestra concerts as a collegiate contest winner, but she walked away as a pro with oodles of concert stage star quality.

Kim, at 17, combines a superlative technical facility with a keen sense of dramatic musicality and lots of stage-worthy chutzpah sans affectation. That's more than enough to make her performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto a sensational way to close the RCO's season on an exhilarating high.

Unfortunately, Saturday's concert at Nightingale Concert Hall didn't end with the Tchailovsky, but what played out as an endless six-movement performance of Brahms's thick and stodgy Serenade No. 1 in D Major. But that's another matter. With an exciting young violin star with credentials to relish, the tiresome business of the Brahms will just have to wait.

The Tchaikovsky abounds in great tunes, pages of virtuosity and sheer, unadulterated excitement. It's a great concerto worthy of a great performance by an assured young artist who can't wait to dig in and let the sparks fly. And that's what it got.

Kim has a big sound, a wonderful sense of line and a dazzling technique. Yet she never, ever sacrifices musicality for the thrill of flash. Theodore Kuchar conducted a spit-and-polish collaboration that was glued to the soloist every nook and cranny of the way. Featuring a college competition winner each year has been a winner for the Reno Chamber Orchestra. Helen Kim's winning ways were never in doubt and a thrill to experience.

Faure's lovely Pavane, Op. 50, was the program's curtainraiser. Gorgeous and serene, with some splendid flute soloing by Mary Miller, the reflective Faure did what it was created to do - soothe.

Kudos to Kuchar for his normally inventive programming, especially of seldom heard works. The Brahms Serenade No. 1 is one of those seldom heard works. And for good reason. It's stuck in the mold of pretentious classicism and doesn't work. At least not well, in spite of some flashes of inspiration. This particular Brahms is like dancing in heavy mud. Normally Kuchar can circumvent the awful truth, dig deep and resuscitate a work so that it rises above its intrinsic worth and normal ability to please.

Not this time.

Not even Kuchar's valiant attempts at CPR could save the day. It was not an upbeat way to wrap a season filled with an abundance of delights and superb music.

All Reno Chamber Orchestra subscription concerts are performed at Nightingale Concert Hall on the University of Nevada, Reno campus, 900 North Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada. For information about the Orchestra's 2006-2007 season and other Reno Chamber Orchestra events call 775-348-9413.