The Inspiring Daybreak of New Musical Talent

By Bryce Christensen

No doubt he had the rising of the sun in mind when J.R.R. Tolkien declared that “Dawn is ever the hope of man.”  But the dawning of a luminous new musical career can also stir fresh hope in the hearts of all those who witness it.   Such hope surged among the hundreds of music-lovers who gathered at the Heritage Center on April 6^th for the last of the Orchestra of Southern Utah’s 2016-17 Legacy-series concerts—the Roy L. Halversen Young Artists Concert, billed under the theme “Youthful Legacy.”  

Named for an outstanding teacher whose decades of selfless service inspired hundreds of aspiring young musicians at Southern Utah University and in the surrounding community, the Halversen Concert gives rising young musical luminaries a chance to showcase and develop their talents by performing as soloists with the Orchestra of Southern Utah (OSU). Without question, the four young guest soloists selected through competitive auditions to perform at this year’s Halversen concert displayed astonishing talent, so fostering strong new hopes of a Future Legacy in music.

In a pre-concert lecture, Dr. James W. Harrison—former professor of German at SUU and former percussionist with OSU and the Utah Symphony—shared his insights not only into the music performed during this Halversen Concert but also into the pioneering work Professor Halversen gave this area during a long and influential career that made concerts like this one possible.  Laced with memorable anecdotes and clarifying insights, Harrison’s illuminating foray into the biographical and cultural context of the evening’s program primed those who had attended for a rich concert experience.

In welcoming the hundreds who had gathered for the concert, OSU President Harold Shirley again underscored the cultural heritage Professor Halversen had given the region during his career and pointed to the four gifted young soloists as worthy heirs of that heritage.  Shirley indeed marveled at the almost effortless virtuosity of these soloists—all of whom he had heard in rehearsal—recognizing, however, the “prodigious practice” behind this illusory effortlessness, practice sustained only with the support of parents and the instruction of  teachers. 

As the first of the evening’s young Halversen soloists, Dixie High School student Carson Drawe performed brilliantly as the piano soloist for the Third Movement of Gershwin’s Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra,   Performing with a propulsive energy that perfectly fused classical and jazz styles in the way that Gershwin’s compositions demand, Drawe evinced a mastery of the instrument remarkable for a pianist of any age, and astounding in a high schooler.  Testing that mastery was the unrelenting kineticism of this movement, which Gershwin himself identified as “an orgy of rhythms, starting violently and keeping to the same pace throughout.”  Amazed listeners will attest to Drawe’s success in meeting this daunting test.  Under the dynamic baton of OSU assistant conductor Adam Lambert, the orchestra likewise met the test of this frenetic number, sweeping the audience up in the ragtime pulse of this infectious composition. 

As the second of the evening’s Halversen soloists, the thirteen-year-old Ellen Hayashi deeply impressed the audience as the violin soloist for the First Movement of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19.   From her first tender and muted notes, this prodigy not yet even in high school captivated her listeners.  As the piece swelled and accelerated into a tense striving toward the transcendent, that audience hung on every exquisitely delivered note.  Hayashi’s unfailing command of a challenging composition continued as the number settled into a pensive tranquility before finally soaring into musical thoughts accessible only to angels.  Dumbfounded listeners could only wonder what this wunderkind will do in ten or fifteen years.  With OSU assistant conductor Carylee Zwang ably taking her turn on the podium for this number, the orchestra sustained Hayashi’s accomplishment with a carefully modulated musical backdrop of ethereal subtlety.

As the third of the evening’s Halversen soloists soprano SUU senior Jocelyn Taylor sang the aria “D’Oreste D’Ajace” from Mozart’s Idomeneo. Her incandescent voice aflame with the passion of an anguished Electra, Taylor transported her mesmerized listeners into the wrenching drama surrounding a tormented and suicidal soul.  Though opera is only rarely part of Cedar City’s cultural life, for this unforgettable moment, Taylor brought her audience to the very zenith of this musical art form.   

After the intermission, the fourth and last of the Halversen soloists, Cedar High School student Sarah Sun dazzled as the piano soloist for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18. Demonstrating an interpretive range exceptional in such a young performer, Sun deftly delivered the unmistakably Slavic power—regal and majestic--of the march-cadenced early measures, the sublime grace and fluidity of melodic later interlude, and finally the irresistible vigor of the exclamatory conclusion.

Because of the services rendered this night by OSU’s more-than-capable assistant directors, Adam Lambert and Carylee Zwang, listeners may have little noted before this number the absence of OSU director Xun Sun (still on sabbatical in China).   But as their awe at his daughter’s artistry on the keyboard grew, many listeners realized afresh how much Cedar City owes to the transgenerational musical endowments of the Sun family.   Cedar City would have lost a still-growing treasury of musical wealth if this family had relocated elsewhere!    

Though the spotlight for Rachmaninoff’s piano concerto rightly belonged to the gifted young Sarah Sun, that number’s hauntingly beautiful French Horn solo by Pete Atkins also deserves appreciative mention.  Sonorous and poignant, that solo fittingly complemented Sun’s superb performance. 

The evening’s final number—the Overture to Rossini’s The Barber of Seville—featured no young soloists.  But as assistant director Adam Lambert weaved the instrumental talents of the entire orchestra into one colorful musical tapestry, the audience realized  that seated before them were scores of older versions of the young Halversen guest soloists, their mature singular talents now welded into a marvelous collective whole.  To be sure, during this widely appreciated number, soloists on oboe (Patrice Ramsey), French horn (Pete Atkin), and clarinet (April Richardson and Sarah Solberg) did briefly stand out, their deft individual musicianship a delight to all.  But it was the collective and seamless melding of instrumental parts—strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion--that most won the audience’s approval.   Whether in passages of serene bliss or in passages of percussive eruption, whether in measures taut with expectant anxiety or in measures insouciant with buoyant joy, the entire orchestra drew listeners into Rossini’s enchantingly comedic harmonies.  And though this concert’s Halversen soloists will bless more than a few future listeners with their distinctive gifts as soloists, no doubt they will often step out of the limelight, mingling those gifts with those of other musicians as members of an orchestra (quite possibly OSU), choir, or other ensemble. 

Listeners left profoundly aware they had experienced the concert dawning of four young musical talents who in future decades will shine both as outstanding soloists and as members of euphonious ensembles.  Such a dawning engenders hope for many precious musical moments in the years ahead.  Departing listeners likewise left conscious of their debt to the event’s civic-minded sponsors (notably, the George S. and Delores Doré Eccles Foundation and the Dixie and Anne Leavitt Foundation).  With the continued support of such sponsors, hope-inspiring dawn will break again and again over the Heritage Center concert stage.