On Wednesday evening, we attended a performance of the National Academy Orchestra with soloist Ian Parker. They played Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto and Brahm's 4th Symphony as well as Andrew Balfour's Pyotr's Dream for strings.
We parked on the street, close-by the Sterling Gates, and did not join a throng of other concert goers making their way to the theatre. I'd been forewarned as one of my Facebook friends had been offering comps to the concert. The hall seats 350 and as the concert began, there were might have been 100 people in the audience altogether. This is really quite sad considering what local classical music lovers missed. They will play the same program again tonight, June 27, at the Burlington Performing Arts Center.
The orchestra is comprised of young musicians from across the country but this is not a school orchestra. Many of the players have already graduated and some are pursuing graduate work. I've heard them play some pretty spectacular performances in past years and have a professional calibre live recording of my own F# Minor Piano Concerto with pianist Valerie Tryon.
Tonight they were conducted by this season's Artistic Director Tania Miller and her assistant Emma Colette Moss.
They opened with the Balfour piece. Coincidentally, the HPO opened their final season concert (Beethoven's 9th) with one of his choral pieces. It was quiet and nicely played and a fitting contrast to the Sturm und Drang that followed. Moss conducted this as well as the first movement of the Rachmaninoff.
I grew up with a recording of the Rachmaninoff concerto played by Van Cliburn. It was so piano-forward that it wasn't until I was in my teens and had a two piano score that I realized that the orchestra, which one could hardly hear, takes the the melodies when the pianist isn't playing them.
Ian Parker must have played this concerto dozens of times. He was certainly comfortable with it and, at times, took the conductor and orchestra along with him. We were 5 rows back, not 25 feet from the keyboard, really a perfect place to watch and hear.
This Steinway has a very percussive sound and the multi-purpose theatre has virtually no ring at all so the performance came off as a little harsh.
As for the orchestra, they coped very well with this warhorse. There were a few miscues and some uneasiness in the winds. The flute soloist has a big beautiful sound and played a couple of gorgeous solos. The strings, as one might expect, don't have the breadth of professional players in spite of the presence of a half dozen pros, the mentors, who played with the youngsters.
The Brahms followed after the interval and it's a big challenge for any orchestra. The first movement went very well as did the second. Miller took the third movement at a surprising clip but everyone kept up. The last movement is the hardest to bring off and didn't seem to hang together as well as the rest of this performance but I'll bet many far more experienced groups have fared far worse.
I don't envy Conductor Miller (or her predecessor Alain Trudel who was only here for one year) following in the footsteps of the absent Maestro who had immense experience, was a crowd-pleasing charismatic speaker and spent much of his career mentoring young players, and growing this orchestra after its founding.
It was a completely enjoyable concert and I have a list of four more to attend before they wrap it all up in August including Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, Dvorak's 8th Symphony and the one for which I can hardly wait when they close the season, Mahler's 5th Symphony. There's lots more on the website.
