Concert Review by Bryce Christensen
“The sea,” declared Jacques Yves
Cousteau, “once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder
forever.” With the tang of seawater in
the air at Cedar City’s Heritage Center, Polynesian decorations hanging in the Center’s
foyer, and leis around the necks of both musicians and concert goers, the
wondrous spell of the sea was strong for the Orchestra of Southern Utah’s
concert devoted to the theme of “The Rhythm of the Sea” the evening of February
25th. Invited aboard the good
ship HMS OSU by OSU President Harold
Shirley during his welcoming remarks, the hundreds of music lovers in
attendance relished the musical delight of visiting sea vistas in the Caribbean,
the South Pacific, and the Arabian Sea.
The
evening’s symphonic seafaring began with a visit to Cuba, the largest island in
the Caribbean. Transported to the land
of the rhumba, salsa, and flamenco by George Gershwin’s Cuban Overture, the audience swayed to a mesmerizing Latin
beat. This brisk and vibrant number
subsided briefly into relative calm (perhaps a refreshing siesta) but then the
orchestra—refreshed by un minuto de Descanso--
leaped into a lively dance pace, whirling faster and faster into the
choreographed finale. Under the
always-inspiring baton of maestro Xun Sun, the entire orchestra caught the
spirit of this number from Cuba’s sun-bathed shores, the versatile percussion section
deserving special praise for infecting the entire audience with a cadence of
sassy Cuban insouciance.
Staying
in the Caribbean, listeners temporarily left behind the good ship HMS OSU to board a bandit ship flying
the Jolly Roger, so venturing into dangerous waters where swash-buckling
pirates rule. Through Klaus Badelt’s
medley of scores from Hollywood’s Pirates
of Caribbean movies, listeners joined buccaneers intent on deeds of
derring-do on the Spanish Main. Even if
real pirate life was not quite the nonstop series of adventures scripted for
the screen, this exciting cinema number conveyed the taunt sense of great
dangers bravely met by the reckless outlaws of the sea. In a performance electric
with the drama of battles on the high seas, Sun and the OSU musicians put
enthralled listeners at the rail, catching the sea spray, as they leaned over
the ship rail with Jack Sparrow, keen to glimpse the first hint of the next hair-raising
new exploit. (Who knew that Maestro Sun could channel an inner Johnny Depp?)
Not
pirates but Polynesian dancers next commanded the attention of the audience, as
they again boarded the HMS OSU, bound
for New Zealand, Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, Fiji, and the other South Sea Islands
that the Polynesians call home. A small
but talented troupe of dancers from Southern Utah University’s Polynesian Club
brought to the Heritage Center Stage the grace and dynamism of dances quite
unlike those of European or American ballrooms.
Dancing sometimes in mixed-gender choreography, sometimes in exclusively
male or exclusively female groups, this troupe performed a half dozen numbers
ranging in feel from the subtle and elegant grace evinced in a couple of the
female dances, to the fiery and martial defiance manifest in one of the male dances. Though the music for these numbers was
pre-recorded, the dancing—whether elegant or martial—was definitely
in-the-moment, conveying the wonderful spontaneity and verve of Polynesian
culture. To illuminate the context for
that culture, club advisor Toanui Tawa (a professor of English at SUU and himself
a Maori native of New Zealand) spoke in a voice-over for the first dance of the
heritage of tales and myths that enlarge the Polynesian outlook on the world.
Polynesia
remained the focus for the evening’s spectacular next sea-themed number: Polynesian Rhapsody, a powerful new
commissioned piece by SUU graduate Jacob Lee, heard in a world premiere on this
magical musical tour of the oceans. Fusing new instrumental music with
traditional Maori song, this marvelous composition developed a stirring
interplay between the orchestra and the voices of the Orchestra of Southern
Utah Chorale, giving listeners at one moment the deep brooding and tense
ferment of dark-toned instrumental music, and in the next moment an outpouring
of overwhelming vocal pathos, a pathos voiced in the original Maori words. Chorale director Jackie Riddle-Jackson
deserves especially high praise for so successfully preparing her
English-speaking singers to perform this challenging number with a force and
power that would impress even native speakers of Maori.
After
intermission, the HMS OSU sailed for
Arabian waters, there to feel the exotic winds wafting from the realm of an
Arab king so enraged by his first wife’s infidelity that he executes each of
his subsequent wives after a single bridal night—that is, until a brave and
resourceful young woman allays this monarch’s murderous impulses with nightly
tales suspended at such key moments of suspense that the king repeatedly spares
her life to hear the narrative continued the next night. Named for the courageous storyteller of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade transports
listeners to this sphere of riveting tales, beginning with 548th
tale, focused—quite appropriately for this concert—on The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship.
Just
like the tales that inspire them, the four movements of Rimsky-Korsakov’s
masterpiece make imaginatively real for the listeners not only the brutally
domineering king and his gentle but ingenious story-telling wife but also the
dizzying variety of fantastic creatures that populate these tales—creatures
that include rocs, jinns, ghouls, mermaids, and witches. Rimsky-Korsakov
himself saw in his composition a “kaleidoscope of fairy-tale images and designs
of Oriental character.” But the
instrumental talents of the OSU musicians proved equal to the daunting task of
depicting these human and mythic characters, moving seamless from passages
luminous with empyreal exaltation to passages bristling with dire threats.
The
entire orchestra deserves high plaudits for interpretive versatility in mastering
this number, as does Maestro Sun for preparing the orchestra to modulate its
rendition of this kaleidoscopic piece.
But special credit for the success of this number must go to the
soloists, above all the featured soloist: violinist Katherine Lee Maxwell. Whether rendering measures radiant, celestial,
and delicate or passages muscular and sinuous, Maxwell captured with rare
musicianship the spirit of the title character, Scheherezade. But her brilliant performance was well
complemented by secondary solos that gave fuller narrative texture to Rimsky-Korsakov’s
work. Thus while Lee made her violin
speak for the female protagonist, Pete Atkins made his French horn rumble with
the stern tones of her husband, the King.
Assigning
identities to the other secondary soloists proves a bit more difficult. But the plaintive tenderness of Feng Sheng’s
cello evoked thoughts of the innocent young women who had already perished by
the king’s cruel orders. With her secondary solo of supple euphony, flutist Ariel
Rhoades summoned images of some beneficent jinn, and with the mellifluous
fluidity of the song she drew from her clarinet in her secondary solo, April
Richardson brought to mind a mermaid.
Woven together, the outstanding solos and the strong performance of the
orchestra animated Rimsky-Korsakov with all of the vitality of the original
tales.
By the time
the good ship HMS OSU finally pulled
into dock, its delighted passengers knew theirs had truly been a truly wonderful
musical sea voyage. The
sponsors—especially the chief sponsor, the George S. and Dolores Doré
Foundation--deserve warm thanks for underwriting this unforgettable voyage. So
do all of the performers, both the regular members of the Orchestra of Southern
Utah and its affiliated Chorale, and the guest performers (Katherine Lee
Maxwell and SUU’s Polynesian Club).
And let music lovers in Cedar City not forget how
fortunate they are that OSU repeatedly brings to this city world premieres of
superb orchestral music (just last year, readers delighted in the world
premiere of Lee’s Casey Jones
Overture). In many cities much
larger than Cedar City, municipal orchestras never give their listeners the
thrill of a world premiere. Xun Sun and OSU’s executive board deserve kudos
again and again for their truly exceptional commitment to bringing new music to
the Heritage Center. So long as that commitment persists, voyage after voyage
on the HMS OSU will discover to view
undreamed of new horizons!
