Soaring on Wings of
Talent
By Bryce Christensen
“If you’re young and talented,”
remarked the novelist Haruki Murakami, “it’s like you have wings.” Remarkably young and even more
remarkably talented, the four featured soloists at the Orchestra of Southern
Utah’s 2012 R.L Halversen Young Artist Concert on Thursday, April 19th,
all soared very high on impressively strong wings.
Named for a gifted musician who devoted his life to
enriching the musical heritage of Southern Utah University and the surrounding
community, the annual Halversen concert showcases rising young local musicians
who have won a place on the program through competitive auditions. This year’s honored soloists were
Hilary Stavros on the oboe, Taylor Armstrong on the marimba, McKenzie Warren on
the violin, and Benjamin Morton on the piano.
To be sure, the evening did not begin on the wings of
youthful soloists. Rather the
evening began on the powerful pinions of the entire Orchestra of Southern Utah
(OSU). Under the inspiring baton
of OSU director Xun Sun, the gifted ensemble that has made Cedar City’s
Heritage Center a musical mecca once again delighted listeners, this time with
Jean Sibelius’ deeply moving Finlandia. Beginning, as it were, from the very
bowels of the earth, the deep bass opening notes of this early-20th-century
masterpiece signaled the beginning of an ascent into the storm clouds of
restless Romanticism, churning with the angst that once fired the hearts of
young Finnish nationalists, restive under the oppression of Russian. Voiced by a plaintive chorus of strings
and winds, that angst sharpened into the staccato of brass and boiled with the
subterranean rumblings of drums, until melting into hymnal serenity, before
quickening into the lighting flashes of the luminous conclusion.
But while the seasoned veterans of the orchestra were
visiting turbulent musical skies, the talented young guest soloists were
stretching their wings off stage, waiting for their turn to take flight. Launching the evening’s youth-soloist
portion of the concert, Hilary Stavros carried listeners into the musical
stratosphere with her rendition of Oboe Concerto by Vincenzo
Bellini. Playing off the
languorous harmonies of the orchestra’s stings, Stavros’ poignant oboe song
flowed with liquid pathos, before quickening into more kinetic and capricious
rhythms. A young virtuoso, Stavros
dazzled with a mastery that sustained an impressive maiden flight as an OSU
concert soloist.
Impressive flight continued with the second featured
soloist, but the feel and cadence modulated as Taylor Armstrong performed the
finale from Eric Ewazen’s Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra
with irresistible energy and verve.
Establishing an animated musical dialogue, Armstrong matched his daring
percussionist forays as a soloist against the rich orchestral responses from
the entire ensemble, forays and responses ramifying into a marvelous cascade of
richly textured music. As
the cadence of this number grew ever more taut and vibrant, and ever more
insistent, Armstrong drew listeners into an almost feverish transport, until
the tone mellowed into a pensive pianissimo—only to erupt again in
pyrotechnics that finally coalesce
into a concluding passage of majestic splendor. Listeners could only marvel at how such a young performer
could deliver both technical skill and interpretive artistry in his artistic
flight.
But youthful skill and artistry again fused when Armstrong’s
marimba number was followed by McKenzie James Warren’s compelling rendition of
the second and third movements of Henri Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No. 5
in A minor, Op. 37. From the
pleading tenderness of the opening notes through a segue of heightening energy
and into a plaintive sustained keening, rare talent gave Taylor eagle’s wings
for astonishing flight. But his
was a flight not only of aery flight but also of fiery descent, as an audacious
musical dive carried the audience from the celestial heights of sublime lament
into storms of flaming fierceness, before finally gliding into the majestic
denouement.
Musical majesty continued to thrill the audience as the
final youth soloist of the evening, Benjamin Morton, flew across the keyboard
in his rendition of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op.
73, “Emperor.” With masterful command, Morton conveyed the shifting
moods of the brilliant German composer--now deliberate, now exuberant; now
reflective, now dynamic. As in
Armstrong’s marimba solo, Morton’s piano solo established a vivacious dialogue
between soloist and orchestra.
However, in this number both the soloist’s sorties and the orchestra’s
rejoinders maintained a distinctively regal style, opulently baroque at many
points, splendidly imperial.
Indeed, imperial would
be the mot juste for the
stunning talent of the young soloist for this number.
Listeners could only marvel at the impressive musical
flights of the four talented young featured soloists who performed before
intermission. But the marvelous
collective endowments of the Orchestra of Southern Utah (OSU)—talents in
evidence primarily as backdrop before intermission—moved back into the
limelight for the final number of the concert: George Enesco’s Romanian
Rhapsody #1. With the sweet trilling of bird songs, the opening of this
magical number evokes the feeling of a joyous awakening, an awakening that soon
quickens into the celebratory swirlings of dance. At first elegant and courtly, those swirlings grow ever more
rapid and frantic, until the wild and tarantella-like choreography finally
collapses in blank silence—only to begin anew, softly at first but finally
ecstatic.
And as they savored the
ecstasy of that conclusion, the audience realized that they had not only
witnessed astounding musical flight but that they themselves had shared the
musical wings that ascended the heavens.
OSU director Xun Sun
once again deserves high praise for preparing the orchestra for such remarkable
musical flight. Likewise deserving
of high praise are the individual musicians whose talents lent listeners such
powerful musical wings. And the
individual musicians worthy of particular praise are the evening’s four young
soloists. Such young talent
ensures that the Heritage Center will be a musical aerie for many years to
come!
