3 premieres warm orchestra listeners
It was a night of warm music against cold weather with three premieres on the program at the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Intimate Neighborhood Concerts series’ “Something NEW” concert Thursday night at west Little Rock’s St. James United Methodist Church.
Conductor Philip Mann opened the evening with the world premiere of the string orchestra version of Suite for Strings by Michael Fine, who was present for (and apparently pleased by) the performance.
Fine, possibly better known as a Grammy-winning classical producer than a composer, has produced an expansive, easily accessible work that takes its audience on a musical journey over four movements ( titled “Overture,” “Heading North,” “Heading South” and “Finding Home”), while giving all five string parts their due.
Mann called the performance of In C by Terry Riley an Arkansas Symphony premiere, and possibly a state premiere as well, a roughly 18-minute rhythmic and harmonic exploration of the key of C major driven by an eighth-note pulse. In addition to effects like using the two cellos as percussion instruments, Riley creates triumphant climaxes that resound like works by Ludwig van Beethoven and Gustav Mahler.
Mann had no need to keep the beat — a percussionist pounding a marimba with a pair of mallets for 18 minutes took care of that — instead giving crucial cues and riding herd on the dynamics with a series of gestures that were presumably meaningful to the musicians.
And the evening concluded with the orchestra’s first-ever performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 1 in c minor, nicely done except for balance issues in three of the four movements — the brass, woodwinds and timpani overwhelming the half-strength strings.
The piece kicks off what the orchestra is calling FelixFest, with Mendelssohn works in all of the ASO’s classical subscription series in January and early February. Concertmaster Kiril Laskarov will solo in the Violin Concerto Jan. 30-31 at the Maumelle Performing Arts Center in Maumelle, and the River Rhapsodies Chamber Music Series program Feb. 2 at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock will include Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 2.