Long Beach Symphony’s “Love Stories” Season Finale

Eckart Preu, Music Director of the Long Beach Symphony, backstage at the Terrace Theater with some of the dancers from the Modern Apsara Company.

REVIEW

Long Beach Symphony, Terrace Theater, Beverly O'Neill Performing Arts Center, Long Beach

DAVID J BROWN

A crash course in a few of the hand gestures integral to Cambodian dance isn’t perhaps the first thing you’d expect in a pre-concert talk but, as delivered by Mea Lath, founder and director of the Modern Apsara Company of Long Beach (not coincidentally home to the country’s largest Cambodian community), this was just part of the more-than-usually-packed half-hour preamble to the LBSO’s ambitious and colorful 90th anniversary season finale, hosted as ever by Music Director Eckart Preu.

And truly colorful the opening item was: the gorgeously-clad Modern Apsara dancers (above and below) enacted Sovann Macha and Hanuman, an excerpt from the Reamker, a version of the Sanskrit Ramayana that now forms the Cambodian national epic. Ms. Lath’s insight into this one aspect of Cambodia’s two millennia-long cultural history aptly aided understanding of the dancers’ meticulously controlled and hypnotically slow movements.

They were accompanied by the locally-based Master Ho Pin Peat Ensemble, plus discreet orchestral underpinning as arranged by Hans-Peter Preu. In a second facet of the pre-concert presentation, the Cambodian composer Chinary Ung (b. 1942)—whose own work was next on the program—had joined Ms. Lath and Maestro Preu to introduce the players, their traditional instruments, and the music itself: sonorously repetitive, dominated by the sound of deep-toned xylophones, and together with the dance bringing a brief and enigmatically impressive glimpse into a performance art profoundly different from any Western counterpart, if such there be.

Chinary Ung.

Though Ung’s Water Rings Overture (1993) is scored for quite modestly-scaled Western orchestral forces, the confident performance by Preu and the LBSO generated an imposing wall of percussion-flecked sound from within which threads of melody arose, coiled, and dissipated, confirming the impression of a static, even hieratic presence, rather than the purposeful forward movement that “overture” normally implies.

Certainly not outstaying its welcome at under seven minutes, it left this listener with a sense of something impersonal and discovered, rather than composed. The haunting and somehow open-ended quiet close to the Water Rings Overture certainly invited further exploration of Ung’s work.

If the Water Rings Overture represents one filtration of an oriental musical tradition through occidental resources, then The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, the main work in the concert’s first half, can be regarded as another, and startlingly different, one. It was written in 1959 by two Shanghai Conservatory graduate students, He Zhanhao (b.1933) and Chen Gang (b.1935), who took an ancient Chinese folk tale of forbidden love as the basis for a work combining Chinese and Western musical resources.

Banned during China’s Cultural Revolution, the work resurfaced in 1978 and has become much loved and widely performed there and farther afield (the celebrated Japanese violinist Takako Nishizaki has made no fewer than seven commercial recordings of it!). The soloist for the LBSO performance was the equally celebrated Chinese star Gao Can (below), who personally introduced the work both in the pre-concert presentation and immediately before his performance.

Unless you have a positively diabetic reaction to “sugary pictorialism” (as one sniffy British reviewer characterized it), The Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto is as purely pleasurable as any other work that explores the lyrical resources of the violin (think Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending). 

After a ppp strings and harp introduction, above which a rapturous flute solo flutters and hovers (perfectly floated here by Principal Heather Clark), the violin was constantly front-and-center throughout the work’s remaining 25 minutes, and Gao Can’s playing ran the gamut from exquisite musings on the very edge of audibility to vigorous passage-work, taking in a soulful duet with Principal cellist Cécilia Tsan in the third of the work’s eight continuous sections.

The title “concerto” is indeed somewhat of a misnomer, as the piece is much more a symphonic poem with soloist telling a detailed narrative. Indeed it’s possible to imagine a performance with appropriate visuals and surtitles to keep the audience up to speed on the story. Without any of this, however, and with soloist, orchestra and conductor clearly enjoying thoroughly their collaboration, The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto was a big hit with the Long Beach audience, and Gao Can’s performance of it was cheered to the roof.

Tchaikovsky in 1877, the year he began
work on the Fourth Symphony.

After the interval it was back to the Western symphonic canon heartland with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 (1877-78), an obvious choice as it was both the work which concluded, 90 years previously to the day, the LBSO’s inaugural season in 1935, and the piece that Eckart Preu chose to conduct in his 2016 audition concert that won him the his Musical Directorship of the orchestra.

In remarks before the present performance he emphasized, understandably, the emotional turmoil Tchaikovsky was in when he wrote his Fourth Symphony, and the consequent expressive extremes that it embodies, but it is also a marvelously constructed work, a consummately fruitful interplay of impulse and craft. Indeed there’s a case to be made for the first movement—nearly as long as its three successors put together—to be regarded as the finest single symphonic structure that Tchaikovsky ever composed.

Most essentially a ballet composer, and a master at creating long, memorable melodies that don’t necessarily lend themselves to Beethovenian-style motivic development, Tchaikovsky nonetheless in this movement builds from just such elements a coherent and towering edifice that never feels forced or in danger of coming apart at the seams, despite extremes of dynamic, pace, and texture. All this was reinforced in a performance as skillfully paced and balanced in terms of both instrumental voices and control of tension and release as anyone could desire.

The Moscow Conservatory
student Antonina Miliukova:
Tchaikovsky's marriage to her
precipitated the composer’s
breakdown—the background
against which the Fourth
Symphony was composed.

As one example, the clarinet+bassoon link between the opening “Fate” fanfare and the first main theme (Tchaikovsky the ballet composer marks it In movimento di Valse) had just the right combination of hesitancy and anticipation, qualities that equally applied to the subtly applied ritardandi in the long winding down of tension, again carried by clarinet and bassoon, between the exposition’s hammering final statement of the main theme and the long-delayed emergence of the second subject, Moderato assai, quasi Andante, introduced by Principal Michael Yoshimi’s clarinet with just the right degree of lugubrious jauntiness.

As for Maestro Preu’s exemplary control of textural balance, one example that stood out among many was the nominal start of the recapitulation when the upper strings reintroduce the main subject over a timpani onslaught—all the parts are marked fff but where some conductors allow the timpani to drown out the strings, here the torrential cascade of the melody itself clearly penetrated despite timpanist Gary Long giving his considerable all.

Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky’s
wealthy patroness from 1877 onwards:
though they never met, their epistolary
relationship helped sustain the composer
while he was writing what he called “our
symphony,” which he dedicated to her.

The middle movements are simple ABA structures, contrasting both with the far-flung complexities of the first movement and with each other in terms of pace, scoring, and emotional character. Maestro Preu kept them moving, but at the opening of the Andantino in modo di canzona allowed room for Principal oboist Rong Huey Liu’s long solo to achieve the required plaintive melancholy, while in the scherzo the full strings showed no signs of raggedness in their long passages of rapid unison pizzicati.

The Finale’s opening lacked nothing in crash-bash excitement, giving way to thrillingly unanimous string figuration and whiplash exchanges with the wind band, so that the whole build-up to the central re-emergence of the first movement’s “Fate” motif felt hectically perilous.

But Tchaikovsky’s addition here of cymbals and bass drum gives it a showy theatricality that rather undermines the motif’s previous gaunt menace, and after the ritenuto, carefully controlled by Maestro Preu, where Tchaikovsky compresses the texture and dynamic down to cellos and basses, piano, he gave the orchestra its head in an audience-galvanizing rush to the finish.

Maestro Preu and the LBSO rehearsing Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. 

It’s difficult to conceive a more fitting and dynamic conclusion to this celebratory season, and as Maestro Preu also noted in that packed pre-concert presentation, the “Love Stories” theme extended to fond farewells to three retiring members of the orchestra, Julie Feves (Principal bassoon), Paul Castillo (2nd clarinet), and Victoria Bacon (cello), each with over 40 years’ service to their credit.

Also moving on was Assistant Conductor Pola Benke (left) to a comparable role at the Pacific Symphony, and notably to her new post as Music Director of the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra. Congratulations to her, and welcome to Emmanuel Rojas, the LBSO’s new Assistant Conductor!

---ooo---

Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, Terrace Theater, Beverly O'Neill Performing Arts Center, Long Beach, Saturday, June 7, 2025, 7.30 p.m.

Images: The performance: Issy Faris, Long Beach Symphony; Chinary Ung: wmft.com; He Zhanhoa and Chen Gang: musicbookslit.com; Gao Can: China Daily; Tchaikovsky, Antonina Miliukova, Nadezhda von Mech: Wikimedia Commons.

If you found this review to be useful, interesting, or informative, please feel free to Buy Me A Coffee!

“Cathedrals of Sound” Revisited at Costa Mesa

Organist Paul Jacobs at the William J. Gillespie Concert Organ in the Segerstrom Hall for his performance of Guilmant’s Symphony No. 1 with the Pacific Symphony in their May
“Cathedrals of Sound” concert.

REVIEW

Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Costa Mesa

DAVID J BROWN

In some opening remarks from the podium, Pacific Symphony Music Director Carl St.Clair (left) noted that this was the third program entitled “Cathedrals of Sound.” Maybe the first predated my move to southern California, or I missed an interim, but the only previous one I recall was well over seven years ago (reviewed here). Then, as on the present occasion, it was enhanced by an opening selection of Gregorian chant by the Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey, Silverado, CA, before the main (indeed only) work, Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony.

That performance clearly showed Maestro St.Clair’s love for and affinity with the Austrian master’s music, but given the considerable time interval between then and the account of the Symphony No. 7 in E major WAB 107 (1881-83, rev. 1885) which filled most of the present concert, it seems unlikely that we will eventually be able to enjoy a complete Bruckner symphony cycle under his baton. That is a great pity, as this account of the Seventh largely reaffirmed the virtues of St.Clair’s approach—mostly spacious but carefully integrated tempi that emphasized the music’s through line rather than disjunction between Bruckner’s great blocks of sound, and acute sensitivity to instrumental color, contrast and balance.

Anton Bruckner in 1885
(portrait by Hermann von Kaulbach).

In other remarks at the start of the second half, immediately before the performance of the symphony, St.Clair alerted the audience to the need for patience: Bruckner does not reach out and seize the emotions; you have to go to him. He also noted the composer’s devotion to the organ, but in so doing perhaps did an unintentional disservice by the implicit notion that his style of scoring was basically a transfer of organ to orchestra.

Bruckner symphonies have been transcribed for organ, but rarely convincingly because these works are conceived in terms of orchestral, not organ, sonorities—in the contrasted timbres of individual instruments, their endless range of combinations, and the full tutti sound.

Ironically, perhaps, the superb Segerstrom Hall acoustic itself underlined this truth at every point in the Pacific Symphony’s account of the Seventh Symphony. This was clear at the very outset of the opening Allegro moderato, where after two measures of pp tremolandi in the 1st and 2nd violins—a barely audible but exquisite shimmer of sound under St.Clair’s baton—the indelibly memorable first theme ascended at just the right mezzo-forte in the cellos, partnered by a solo horn, more than usually distinct, to give the extra edge of aspiring nobility.

This theme arches majestically over a full 21 measures, and is immediately repeated in its entirety with winds and then brass added to the orchestral mix—Bruckner leaving no doubt as to the scale on which he conceives the movement. St.Clair’s masterly pacing of this opening extended through the more reflective second theme, then the positively skittish third motif, and then their long and inspired working out. His approach—steadily confident in the composer’s mastery of form and balance—recalled that of the late Jascha Horenstein, and extended all the way to the glorious conclusion where, over more than 50 measures of a gradual timpani crescendo (the only drum incursion in the whole movement), the hall filled with wave on wave of burnished tone from the whole Pacific Symphony at the top of its game.

The Adagio of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony reaches its climax.

The great Adagio was equally fine, weighty but still trenchant at St.Clair’s faithful observation of Bruckner’s Sehr feirlich und langsam (very solemn and slow) marking, with the golden-gravel sonorities of the four Wagner tubas that Bruckner introduced here for the first time in a non-operatic context immediately grounding the movement’s sound-world. At the mountain-top climax some 18 minutes in, the sometimes-disputed extra percussion were blessedly present—indeed this was the first time I’d seen a second triangle (one player, two hands) deployed at that moment, with literally ringing effect.

It’s often posited that there’s no one right way to interpret great music, and that’s certainly true of Bruckner’s Seventh. Equally though, different approaches bring different challenges, and at this point in the performance—half-way in terms of the number of movements but two-thirds in total duration—a smidgeon of doubt began to creep in. The Seventh is unique amongst his symphonies in that it comprises two very spacious movements followed by two much quicker and shorter ones. So how, given that we’ve already heard some of the grandest music in the orchestral repertoire, to avoid a sense of anti-climax, particularly at the very end, where Bruckner doesn't try to top his majestic close to the first movement?

A couple of years ago I enjoyed a very different account of the work from Philippe Jordan and the LAPO (reviewed here). After somewhat but not hugely quicker movements I and II (totaling around 41 minutes compared with St.Clair’s 45), Jordan took the scherzo at quite a lick, following the Sehr schnell (very fast) marking, and then proceeded onto the finale with barely a breath’s pause (though the score has no attacca indication). St.Clair, by contrast, continued the weightiness of the first two movements, giving the scherzo section itself a steady inexorability but maintaining a sense of forward movement in the trio so that when the scherzo returned the cumulative effect of the whole was an immensely powerful unity, accentuated by the Pacific Symphony’s playing.

As for the finale, St.Clair followed Bruckner’s Bewegt, doch nicht schnell (Moving, but not fast) marking at the start, but this movement, very subtly constructed and diverse in terms of pace and dynamic, somehow didn't quite take off and build with the needed sense of inevitability to its conclusion. Where M. Jordan kept the whole thing airborne right up to a crisply delivered final cadence that sidestepped the built-in problem of Bruckner’s simply not scoring it as the crowning moment of the symphony, here the sense of wearisome repetitiveness that can lurk in the background with this composer wasn't entirely avoided, and when that final climax did arrive, the hesitant initial applause showed that it hadn’t overcome the all-too-familiar “Is that actually the end?” audience response (though to be fair, it rapidly grew into a deserved ovation).

The Norbertine Fathers of St Michael's Abbey.

The program’s opening had been subject to late alteration, as readers of the booklet wondering why they weren’t listening to the promised Sinfonia in D major, BWV 1045 of J. S. Bach rapidly realized. In his opening remarks, Maestro St.Clair announced that the concert would be in remembrance of both the late William Gillespie, whose generosity had enabled building of the William J. Gillespie Concert Organ that we would hear played by Paul Jacobs, and of another generous Pacific Symphony donor, Elizabeth Stahr, who had died very recently.

The Norbertine Fathers  began with the Requiem Aeternam Introit, and then followed a radiant account from the full Pacific Symphony strings of the “Air on the G string” from Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068—a far cry from the trumpet-topped jubilation and virtuosic solo violin of the extensive Sinfonia originally programmed—in turn succeeded by two more Gregorian chants from the Fathers, Requiem Aeternam Gradual and Lux Aeterna. The audience observed Carl St.Clair’s request that they refrain from applauding this whole opening section of the concert (a sensitive and devoted response that was in marked contrast to the persistent loud chatter beyond the circle of listeners that had marred the Norbertine Fathers’ earlier presentation in the foyer, below).

The main work in the first half was the Symphony No. 1, Op. 42 (1874) for organ and orchestra by Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911), one of the illustrious roster of 19th century French organist-composers that also included Charles-Marie Widor, Louis Vierne, and Charles Tournemire. As with Widor’s own Symphonie pour orgue et orchestre, Op. 42, drawn from two of his solo organ symphonies, both of Guilmant’s were adapted from organ sonatas, Nos. 1 and 8 respectively, and in this performance his First Symphony made an assertive impression.

Alexandre Guiilmant

A little like the opening of Berlioz’s Te Deum, Guilmant begins with dramatic alternations between fortissimo organ and orchestra—the mighty Gillespie instrument under Paul Jacobs’ hands (and feet!) and the Pacific Symphony the perfect match for each other. After this 19-measure introduction, the main body of the movement ensues with an energetic main theme on organ pedals only, duly taken up by the orchestra, and then proceeds to a more lyrical second subject. All is developed and recapitulated, judiciously apportioned between organ and orchestra, and concludes resplendently.

A long lyrical theme infuses the aptly-named Pastorale second movement, exquisitely rendered initially by Paul Jacobs on (presumably) the flute stop specified by the composer, and then taken up by the orchestral winds, horns, and strings. The Allegro assai finale returns to spectacular confrontations and collaborations between the soloist and the whole orchestra, building up to a roof-raising conclusion with bass drum and cymbals reinforcing the tumult.

At a trim 23 minutes, Guilmant’s First Symphony was a concise, welcome, unhackneyed, and untrendy choice of companion to the Bruckner. While breaking no new ground structurally or harmonically, it is as tuneful and immediately enjoyable as anyone could desire, and Paul Jacobs, Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony clearly relished working together in their exuberant performance. It would be splendid if at some future time they could reunite in Guilmant’s Second Symphony or the Widor Symphonie, or indeed explore further afield in the rich organ+orchestra repertoire.

Paul Jacobs acknowledges the ovation after his 
encore performance of Bach's Fugue in A minor.

Even this was not the end of a first half that was far more extensive than you usually get with a Bruckner symphony. Paul Jacobs returned to the organ loft for a substantial and virtuosic encore, the complete Fugue from J. S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543, the spectacular conclusion of which included a passage of rapid pedal-work by Jacobs’ hard-working (and clearly visible) feet that brought the audience en masse to theirs. 

---ooo---

Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, Thursday, May 15, 2025, 8 p.m. 

Images: The performers: Doug Gifford; Bruckner and Guiilmant: Wikimedia Commons.

Seattle Opera’s "Tosca" is a Classic

Lianna Haroutounian as Tosca and Yonghoon Lee as Cavaradossi in Seattle Opera's production
of Puccini's Tosca.

REVIEW

Tosca, by Giacomo Puccini, McCaw Hall, Seattle

ERICA MINER

In our technology-dominated times, a “classic” production of a perennial operatic favorite is always welcome. Seattle Opera has granted every traditional opera fan’s wish in its latest take on Giacomo Puccini’s archetypal masterwork, Tosca. Brought back to the Seattle stage after a successful 2015 run, this recreation of the sumptuous scenery and stylish period costumes, coupled with a first-rate cast, added up to an evening to delight the eyes and ears of the audience.

Giacomo Puccini.

Written at the height of Puccini’s compositional powers, the opera has been performed by the world’s leading singers since it premiered in Rome in 1900. Assembling a cast that can fill the shoes of these virtuosi is not easy, but all the artists in the May 11 SO performance completed their tasks admirably.

The title role of the fiery stage diva Tosca is so iconic as to be daunting for anyone following in some of the great singers’ footsteps. Up to the task was Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian, who used her opulent voice to milk every dramatic moment to the maximum. She made the most of her opportunity to shine in the illustrious aria Vissi d’Arte, with well-connected phrasing and a high B-flat that was thrilling.

Dramatically, Haroutounian gave a well-balanced and convincing rendering of the diva’s diverse emotional journey as the woman who transforms from idealistic and smitten to desperate enough to commit murder to save her lover’s life.

Lianna Haroutounian.

Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee, who made a lasting impression in the company’s 2023 concert presentation of Samson and Delilah, delivered a compelling rendering of Tosca’s paramour, Cavaradossi. His lung power was impressive, and his voice showed immense power, especially in the upper range, though at times the amount of volume was overdone. He and Haroutounian blended perfectly in their scenes together, the highlight of which was their Act 1 love duet, one of the most dizzyingly sexual in recent memory.

In his SO debut, world-renowned Serbian baritone Željko Lučić upheld his outstanding reputation in his portrayal of the malicious Scarpia. Having gained his reputation by singing such roles as Scarpia and Macbeth at the Metropolitan Opera, his appearance here was much anticipated. He proved more than worthy of the highest expectations. From the moment he appeared onstage, he projected a malevolence that grabbed the listener in a take-no-prisoners attitude and his commanding voice showed limitless power over his world. It’s hard to imagine anyone scarier or creepier than this villain. His portrayal was so egregiously evil that when he gasped his final breath, the audience applauded raucously in unison.

Željko Lučić.

It is always a pleasure to watch and listen to bass Adam Lau, now a SO favorite through his many roles performed here in the past several seasons. He gave his all as beleaguered escapee Angelotti, displaying breathless despair with both his admirable vocality and skilled dramatic sense.

In the comprimario roles, other familiar SO performers rounded out the cast with consistently commendable singing: Barry Johnson as the Sacristan and John Marzano as Spoletta, with Ilya Silchukou debuting as Sciarrone and Micah Parker in his main stage debut as the Jailer. Former Magic Flute genie Grace Elaine Franck-Smith sang the Shepherd Boy angelically with lovely tones.

After notable debuts at several of the world’s greatest houses, conductor Leonardo Sini also appeared on the SO podium for the first time. The young Italian-born maestro proved himself capable of a remarkable variety of gestures appropriate for the gamut of emotions that Puccini portrayed in the work: whether subtle and understated or bold and forthright, his zeal for his compatriot’s score was evident, both to the orchestra and to the audience. The sound he drew from the orchestra had a beautiful sheen and was a pleasure to listen to. The French horns were absolute perfection in the Act 3 introduction.

Leonardo Sini.

Sini’s performance was in keeping with the Italian themes brought to life in the 1950s-designed sets from Ercole Sormani’s Milanese scenery shop. First opened in 1838, the studio was at the forefront of representational scenic painting in the era of Verdi and Puccini.

The Tosca sets, consisting of a series of painted backdrops which the company has owned since the 1960s, give a vivid, utterly realistic trompe l’oeil perspective on the Eternal City, both exterior and interior: an ornate cathedral; a menacingly lavish Palazzo Farnese apartment reeking of power; a starlit sky and dawn breaking behind a prison. It was refreshing to see such a true-to-life rendering; the ideal atmosphere for a splendid period story set to timeless music.

Connie Yun’s exquisite lighting meshed perfectly with the sets. Sunrise in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo had a particularly vibrant glow, and the cathedral looked glorious. With his costumes, Andrew Marlay brought back his 2015 creations, depicting early 19th century Roman style with lush, colorful fabrics and great attention to detail: classic yet fresh-looking, a welcome look back to the times of bonnets and carriages.

Members of the Chorus.

Chorus Master Michaella Calzaretta and Youth Chorus Master Julia Meyering joined forces to produce a superb, well-rounded sound and sparkling tones to add depth to the main cast’s work.

Bringing all of the above to the stage was director Brenna Corner, who exploited the extreme violence of the story.

Adam Lau and Yonghoon Lee.

The dramatic gestures and facial expressions of all of the performers heightened the spectacle and kept the audience riveted. There were any number of appealing details, particularly pertaining to Scarpia. When he made his first entrance and brutally collared the young acolyte, he didn’t even have to sing a note to show his monstrous character. His intense final gasps were as horrible as his evil personality. The corpses being dragged offstage in the prison scene were less effective, however.

Gustav Mahler might have criticized Puccini’s work as “a masterful piece of trash,” but 100-plus years later, Tosca reigns supreme among operatic oeuvres. Ending the season with a memorable production of one of opera’s most tour de force masterpieces is sure to motivate audiences to return for Seattle Opera’s next season. Tosca runs through May 17. Tickets and information for remaining performances can be found at https://www.seattleopera.org/tosca.

The Act 1 Finale in the Cathedral.

---ooo---

McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St, Seattle, WA 98109, Sunday, 11 May, 2025, 7.30 p.m.

Images: The performance: Sunny Martini (except for Act 1 Finale: Elise Baktun); Puccini: Wikimedia Commons. 

USC Chamber Virtuosi Shine at April’s “Second Sunday”

The strings of the USC Chamber Virtuosi play Olli Mustonen’s Nonetto II:
l-r: Lina Bahn, Anna Renton, Veronika Manchur, Abigail Park (violins), Nicolas Valencia,
Cecile McNeill (violas), Logan Nelson (double bass), Joseph Kim and Seth Parker Woods (cellos).

REVIEW

USC Thornton Chamber Virtuosi, Second Sundays at Two, Rolling Hills United Methodist Church

BARBARA GLAZER, Guest Reviewer

The “Second Sundays at Two” concert series has since its inception in January 2009 been a treasured feature of Southern California’s chamber music scene, not least because of the near-perfect acoustics and excellent sightlines of Rolling Hills United Methodist Church. Due to Covid-19, the concerts have been streamed over the internet since March 2020 and—now presented by the nonprofit Classical Crossroads, Inc.—they continue to be livestreamed and subsequently made available on Vimeo for a limited period.

As well as drawing on the exceptionally rich resources of local world-class professional musicians (and sometimes from further afield), the series also highlights the cream of local student musicians, and in this concert some from USC Thornton performed alongside distinguished faculty members Lina Bahn (violin) and Seth Parker Woods (cello) as the USC Thornton Chamber Virtuosi.

Barbara Glazer, local Rancho Palos Verdes resident but global concert attendee and lifelong classical music student, writes: “This group of USC School of Music Rising Stars is aptly named 'Virtuosi,' their concert being filled with stunning performances of a well-integrated program—music influenced by, or which referenced, a range of ethnic folk themes and dance rhythms.

“The opening piece was the spiritual Deep River, included by the British Black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor ( 1875-1912) as the 10th of his 24 Negro Melodies, Op. 59 (1905) for piano. Further (and gorgeously) reworked for double bass and piano by USC student Logan Nelson and played by himself and William Chiang, piano (right),  this brilliant arrangement afforded a deeper emotional response to the music. Never before have I heard a double bass sing with such emotional depth—resonating with the gorgeous deep tones of Paul Robeson that many of us remember hearing.

“William Chiang was joined by Seth Parker Woods (left) for the Andante (E-flat major) third movement from Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19, in a performance that expertly fulfilled the composer's wish that the piano be not merely be an accompaniment, but an equal partner, to the cello: the piano introduces the Romantic themes which are embellished by the cello. I very much liked their tempo. Andante usually means slowly (but at a waking pace), but they added some ‘con moto’ for energy—that important element achieved when the composer overcame his depression and several years of writer's block.

Rachmaninoff, c.1906.

“Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) had achieved early compositional success in the 1890s, but after the severe critical panning of his First Symphony (1895, premiered 1897), he succumbed to a deep depression and underwent therapy. When he finally overcame his lassitude and began composing again, this sonata (1901), one of his few chamber pieces, was one of his recovery successes. Written in the same time-frame as the Second Piano Concerto, both have references to Tchaikovsky's music and require astute attention to phrasing and tempi—exceedingly well done in this performance.

“I thought the Piano Quintet in A Minor by Florence Price (1887-1943)—played by Lina Bahn and Agatha Blevin (violins), Nicolas Valencia (viola), Seth Parker Wood, and William Chiang (below)—was exquisite and masterful. Price, a mixed-race pianist child prodigy, was born in Little Rock, Alabama, to a black father, a dentist, and a white mother, a teacher. She gave her first piano recital at four, and wrote her first, and well-received, composition at 11. She graduated from high school at 14, and was admitted to the prestigious and selective New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she ‘passed’ as a Mexican in an attempt to avoid the racial animus that prompted her family's move to Chicago in 1927 during the years of heavy southern migration to northern cities.

“She received her teacher's diploma from the Conservatory, and went onto composing and playing the organ for silent films. She composed over 300 works in every genre, and played a prominent role in the Chicago Black Renaissance movement; she won the prestigious Wanamaker Prize in 1932. Her Symphony No. 1 (1932) became, in 1933, the first by a Black American woman to be performed by a major orchestra—the Chicago Symphony; other major ensembles here and abroad followed suit. In 1940 she was the first Black person to be included in the American Society for Composers, Authors, and Publishers.

“As a teenager I first encountered Price’s work when my cousin, a trained opera singer, took me to a performance of her art songs and spirituals; I was enchanted and have studied her work ever since. Happily she is now undergoing a rediscovery, and I'm grateful for the inclusion of the Piano Quintet and its brilliant performance by the Virtuosi players in this concert.

Florence Price.

“The Allegro first movement is the most 'classical' of the four; African-American spirituals infuse the slow second movement, while the third, the rousing Juba African-American dance, was electrifying. There is still some disagreement as to the quintet’s date of composition: one music historian offers an early date of 1928, and if so then the quintet’s third movement Juba precedes the third movement Juba in the First Symphony.

“Both are gorgeously written, substituting a Black plantation dance for those (think minuet and others) used in classical compositions. The 19th century Juba Dance (or Hambone) originated with the enslaved Blacks on Southern plantations. It used clapping, foot stomping, and slapping parts of the body (chest, thighs, etc), with the hard hand bone (hence, hambone) to produce a percussive sound—the body becoming an instrument substituting for the drums forbidden to slaves for fear of inter-plantation communication. 

“The quintet’s concluding fourth movement was a fast-paced exuberant ride. I was totally thrilled with the entire performance, inspired by Dvořák's music and his counseling for Americans to incorporate their folk heritages in their music: here by using African-American thematic material.

“The British composer and violist Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) wrote the next selection, the Dumka: Duo concertante (1940-41) for violin, viola and piano, which was exquisitely performed by Agatha Blevin, Nicolas Valencia, and William Chiang (right). Clarke was born in England of an abusive American father and a German mother, and in 1913 made British music history by becoming one of six women hired by the professional Queen's Hall Orchestra.

"After 1916, she lived for long periods in America, finally permanently moving here in 1941, where she found success performing and composing, although her output was not as copious, nor her acceptance as renowned, as Price's. The Rebecca Clarke Society, founded in 2000, is dedicated to encouraging the study and performance of her work, and is part of the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, which supports women composers who embrace their various ethnic heritages, as in the American Indianist movement.

Rebecca Clarke, c.1919.

"The etymological root of Dumka is Ukrainian, meaning a thought, or an idea (from duma; plural, dumy); in music it is characterized by abrupt contrasts of slower, pensive, dreamy, more melancholy sections with faster, more joyful, exuberant ones, and was popularized by Dvořák and Tchaikovsky. It is said to be derived from Slavic ballads sung by wandering Cossack bards accompanied by a lute (kobza).

I have paternal, non-Slavic, Ukrainian roots and am familiar with Dumka music, and truly admire both Clarke's composition and the performance given at this concert. Several old Magyar folk motifs, based on the pentatonic scale and similar to central Asian folk traditions, are found throughout the piece, as in Bartók and Martinů who Clarke references; Gypsy stylistic material is borrowed from Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 in the opening and closing passages. Both technically and musically this was an enchanting performance.

“The concluding piece, the Nonetto II, for nine strings composed in 2000 by the Finn Olli Mustonen (b. 1967, below right), was a wonderful choice as the music is post-modern incorporating thematic material from the baroque to minimalism—a summation and nod to the musical themes and ideas of the preceding pieces: fugal materials from the baroque period as well as from Shostakovich and Hindemith are referenced beautifully.

“The above-listed Virtuosi string players, augmented by Anna Renton, Veronika Manchur, and Abigal Park on violins, Cecile McNeill on viola, and Joseph Kim on cello, gave the work all the sensitivity, attack, and virtuosity that it required and were implied by the headings to its four brief sections: I. Inquieto, II. Allegro impetuoso, III. Adagio, and IV. Vivacissimo. 

“Altogether this was a marvelous showcase for the talents of these young musicians and a tribute to the exalted standards of their teachers and of USC Thornton (and sadly also a reminder of how arts funding in this country is now under threat from the policies of the current administration). 

"Fortunately you don’t have to take my word for how good this recital was, as you can enjoy the whole thing on Vimeo (click here or on the top image), masterfully recorded by Classical Crossroads’ tech wizard, Jim Eninger. Watching and rewatching, I felt as totally engaged as if I were in the audience, each time finding new and deeper appreciation of a wonderful concert.”

---ooo---

Rolling Hills United Methodist Reform Church, Sunday, April 13, 2025, 2:00 p.m.

Images: The performance: Classical Crossroads, Inc.; Rachmaninoff, Florence Price: Wikimedia Commons; Rebecca Clarke: composer homepage; Olli Mustonen: KarstenWittMusikManagement.

Looking Up and Ahead at Mount Wilson's 2025 Season

Sunday Afternoon Concerts in the Dome: 

The Upcoming Summer 2025 Season

DAVID J. BROWN

For the eighth season in nine years (2020 was, as we all know, essentially canceled as far as live music and other performing arts were concerned due to Covid), the remarkable acoustics of the Dome that houses the 100-inch Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory will in summer 2025 resound to music performed by world-class players from Southern California and beyond, adding as in recent years jazz to the previous classical-only repertoire.

Indeed, this will be the most ambitious season yet of Sunday Afternoon Concerts in the Dome, reflecting the remarkable success of an enterprise triggered back in 2017 by the request from Mount Wilson Institute Trustee Dan Kohne, now the Observatory’s Chief Operating Officer, to Cécilia Tsan (Principal Cellist of Long Beach Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale) to test the Dome’s acoustics (right).

The result left no doubt as to their unique beauty, resonance, and impact, as many thousands have enjoyed hearing from the brief video she posted on Facebook.

The first concert was given on Sunday, July 2017 by Cécilia Tsan and the late Ben Powell (see below) and was reviewed here on LA Opus. So successful was it that a second concert was scheduled and given two months later (also reviewed here)—and the die was cast for full seasons in the year following and subsequently, with Ms. Tsan as Artistic Director, a role that she has fulfilled ever since.

Now for 2025 she has upped the total from the previous years’ one concert per month, from May through to October, to nine in all—on the Sunday afternoons of May 25, June 29, July 20, August 3, 17 and 31, September 21, and October 5 and 19—but in each case the timing and format remain as originally established eight years ago: the same one-hour-plus program performed twice, at 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., with wine and light refreshments served outside in the time between and included in the ticket price of $60.

THE 2025 SEASON

The season kicks off on May 25 with “Carte Blanche,” a jazz program from Peter Erskine & the Lounge Art Ensemble (Peter Erskine (left), drums, Bob Sheppard, saxophone, Darek Oles, bass). The repertoire will be announced from the stage. Erskine has been voted “Best Jazz Drummer of the Year” 10 times by the readers of Modern Drummer magazine, while Sheppard is a professor of jazz studies at USC and can be heard on the soundtracks of major motion pictures and recordings. Darek Oles, a native of Poland, has performed with many major jazz artists such as Pat Metheny, Bennie Maupin, Peter Erskine, Alan Pasqua, etc.

On June 29, under the title “Cellissimo,” the two cellist friends Cécilia Tsan and Allan Hon will play an eclectic program that includes a world premiere, Ready to Rumble (2024) by the Austrian-born, LA-resident composer Gernot Wolfgang (b. 1957, right), an arrangement of the celebrated Chaconne from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, a Barrière Sonata, and an Offenbach duet.

July 20 brings perhaps the stand-out event of the season. To celebrate the 56th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s first walk on the Moon, astronaut-violinist Sarah Gillis joins Martin Chalifour (violin), Andrew Duckles (viola), Cécilia Tsan (cello), and Tim Durkovic (piano) to play Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op.44.

Sarah Gillis flew to space in September 2024 on Jared Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn mission, where she played John Williams’ "Rey's Theme" from Star Wars: The Force Awakens (click here or on the image above). For this concert—with John Williams' blessing—Gillis will play the violin and piano version of that piece especially for the Mount Wilson music series. The program will also include Beethoven’s Piano Trio No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 11. This will also be the first time in MWO’s concert series that chamber music with piano has been included.

On August 3, the Zelter String Quartet (Kyle Gilner and Gallia Kastner (violins), Carson Rick (viola), and Allan Hon (cello)) return by popular demand, with a fascinating program that pairs music from the 19th and 21st centuries. This acclaimed ensemble of youthful musicians will give the world premiere of City of Angels (2024), a three-movement homage to his home city of Los Angeles by Todd Mason (b. 1957, left), together with the first of Beethoven's celebrated "late quartets," his String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, Op. 127, composed in 1825.

As noted above, in the very first Mount Wilson concert in July 2017 Cécilia Tsan was partnered by violinist Ben Powell (right). Ben Powell died in October 2024, one day after his 38th birthday, and in “Celebrating Ben Powell” on August 17, Cécilia Tsan will be joined by Leah Zeger (violin and vocals), Zach Dellinger (viola), Roch Lockyer (guitar and vocals), and Brian Netzley (bass). Cécilia Tsan writes: “As Ben’s friends, we will perform music from various genres, honoring his exceptional versatility on the violin and his beautiful soul.”

August 31: Leelou and Friends. Leelou is a young vocalist (and cellist) from Paris who was in the finals of the French reality singing competition The Voice: La plus belle voix in 2017 at the age of 11. Leelou graduated two years ago from the Pau Conservatory, and has been touring as Nefertari (left) in the French musical Les Dix Commandements in Europe. At Mount Wilson she, together with her friends Tony Bredelet (vocals and guitar), and Arnaud Dunoyer (keyboard), will offer a variety of songs featuring the various genres that she loves.

On September 21 the 2025 Mount Wilson season turns to strictly classical repertoire when the New Hollywood String Quartet (below, l-r: Tereza Stanislav (violin), Andrew Shulman (cello), Rafael Rishik (violin), Robert Brophy (viola)) offer an all-Schubert program. They will open with the String Quartet No. 12 “Quartettsatz” in C minor, D. 703 (1820) and then will be joined by Cécilia Tsan as second cellist to perform what is arguably the very pinnacle of Schubert’s astonishing final year of composition and, tragically, his life—the String Quintet in C major, D. 956, which he completed only two months before his death in November 1828 at the age of 31.

October 5: Musical Friends. Roger Wilkie (violin), Jonah Sirota (viola), Cécilia Tsan (cello), Geoff Osika (bass), Gigi Brady (oboe), and Sergio Coelho (clarinet) will present a winds and strings celebration.

This program of 20th century music, curated by Jonah Sirota, will include works by Benjamin Britten, Sergei Prokofiev, and most intriguingly Hans Gál OBE (right), the Jewish/Austrian composer, pedagogue, musicologist, and author who fled the Nazis to the UK in 1938 and stayed there for the rest of his very long life (1890-1987).

Finally, on October 19 the Dome will resound to Mexican rhythms, tunes and timbres when it hosts Mariachi Lindas Mexicanas, LA’s all-female mariachi band, which was founded in Boyle Heights, California in 2007 by musical director Maricela Martínez (left), a musician with more than 20 years of experience in the mariachi business. “The goal of Mariachi Lindas Mexicanas is to share this tradition with younger generations around the world."

After its construction during World War 1 and “first light” in November 1917 for the 100-inch Hooker Telescope, major astronomical discoveries made the Dome a uniquely significant temple to science during the first half of the 20th century: now, with acoustics that rival the great cathedrals of Europe, in the 21st century it has become an equally unique concert venue. If this brief preview of the 2025 Sunday Afternoon Concerts in the Dome has whetted your appetite, tickets for all the above concerts are available now from the Mount Wilson Observatory website—enjoy!

---ooo---

Images: Dome exterior: Todd Mason; Cécilia Tsan: Facebook; Peter Erskine: artist website; Gernot Wolfgang: composer website; Sarah Gillis: YouTube; Todd Mason: composer website; Ben Powell: Summit records; Leelou: Facebook; New Hollywood String Quartet: artists' website; Hans Gál: The Well-Tempered Ear; Dome interior: Irina Logra, courtesy Mount Wilson Observatory; Maricela Martínez: Alliance for California Traditional Arts.