Music Reviews

Jan 15, 2007 - The Reno Philharmonic scores with the profound and the beautiful and Rachel Kudo

By By Jack Neal

Building a program from a semblance of the raucousness of Tin Pan Alley, to the affectingly profound, with lush romanticism sandwiched in between, provides nothing less than a concert recipe for success. It's also a recipe that allows conductor Barry Jekowsky to score once again with accessible and exciting programming, triumphantly performed.

William Grant Still's "Animato" from his Afro-American Symphony, Edvard Grieg's ultra romantic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor, and Dmitri Shostakovich's massive and profound Symphony No. 10 in E minor presents an enormous programmatic challenge. It's a challenge impressively managed by the Reno Philharmonic and its conductor Barry Jekowsky.

Adding to this achievement is 19 year old American pianist Rachel Kudo, who is making her Reno debut with these series of concerts. Before a large and appreciative Sunday afternoon (1/14/06) audience of instant fans at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts, this young pianist proves she is a winner in the hard-knock existence of the concert world.

The Grieg piano concerto is so popular it's rarely heard, which makes it all the more welcome. Kudo provides a technically assured performance with an abundance of lyricism that caresses the concerto's rhapsodic nature from beginning to end. The bravura of the first and last movements, give way to the haunting middle movement that is one of the loveliest slow movements in all of the piano concerto repertory. Kudo is a subtle artist whose impeccable facility never overshadows her gifts for a perfectly turned phrase mixed with elements of surprise.

We've heard the critical complaint that Grieg could not develop a tune, only compose one. In his A minor concerto he has composed one memorable tune after another. What's not to like and love? Nothing seemed problematic for Sunday's audience. Kudo and the concerto deserved and received a thunderous ovation.

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 is the composer's symphonic masterpiece. Few other symphonies have such a shrewd, keen sense of balance from movement to movement. Taken alone, any of its four movements are admirable, but incomplete. Taken together, each plays off the others so well that incompleteness gives way to a completeness of vision that bridges the delicate balance between passion and poise that makes for great writing and the possibilities of a compelling interpretation.

Jekowsky leads an incisive performance with cool precision and blistering subjectivity. The orchestra rises nicely to the occasion for a flawlessly paced presentation full of operatic lyricism and architectural insight. Jekowsky's is a powerful musical exploration of a work loaded with explorable utterances. How exciting to hear such a definitive performance here.

How exciting, too, to hear William Grant Still's attractive "Animato" from his Afro-American Symphony. This bluesy, jazzy, thoroughly American work got the treatment from a bluesy, jazzy, thoroughly American orchestra and conductor who know how to get under the skin and into the groove of American music. It's the kind of letting one's hair down, that gives the Still a pulsating reading that turns it into the music that makes everyone dance.

The concert will be repeated Tuesday (1/16/07) at 7:30 p.m.

All Reno Philharmonic subscription concerts are played at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts, 100 South Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada. The next series of Reno Philharmonic concerts are March 4 and 6 (2007) and will feature violinist Sarah Chang playing Sibelius's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. The program will also include Smetana's Overture to "The Bartered Bride," and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, the "Scottish." For information call 775-323-6393.