121410CYORev
Review
Contemporary Youth Orchestra at Waetjen Auditorium (December 11)
by Daniel Hathaway
A large crowd of parents, siblings and friends filled Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium on Saturday night, December 11 for the first concert of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra’s “Sweet Sixteen” season — yes, the ensemble has reached mid-adolescence and one of these days will be older than its players are allowed to be. The longish program had advertised a world premiere by Cleveland composer Monica Houghton, Alan Hovhanness’ And God Created Great Whales, a collaboration with Project Trio and Aaron Jay Kernis’ New Era Dance. When we arrived, we discovered there were two bonus pieces on the menu as well: a William Alwyn oboe concerto and a full-string orchestra version of a Shostakovich string quartet, plus a guest conductor!After the 113 young musicians neatly filed onstage, founded and conductor Liza Grossman launched the evening with Monica Houghton’s Arp 87, named for a loosely connected pair of galaxies far enough away that its light is about 300 million years old by the time it gets to astronomers on earth. Thanks to Hubble, we have pictures. Houghton writes that the images of the galaxies' “blue star clusters…a magical ring of light…struck me with a keen emotion” and became the subject for her commissioned work with the CYO.
Astral-sounding brass begin, yielding to appropriately cosmic sounds from woodwinds and strings over a persistent bass rhythm. Tonalities vacillate between major and minor punctuated by brass outbursts and tinkling sounds from the percussion section. Shimmery strings and winds move in parallel sixth chords then the texture spreads into a large chord with woozy brass effects before fading into clarinet tremolos accompanied by antique cymbals and mysterious chord clusters. An eloquent tone poem, cleverly written and adroitly performed. Ms. Houghton received a warm ovation for her work.
While winds, brass and percussion decamped, Ms. Grossman introduced her Interlochen Arts Academy mentor, David Holland, who would lead the strings in Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 8. The five-movement work is dark and brooding — a major emotional contrast to the brightness of the Houghton piece, and one that provided some interesting challenges for the string players. The opening Largo was dark, rich and expressive, though one long, low, throbbing note in the double basses needed to be tuned up. The players were confidently rhythmic and the violas made a strong showing in the Allegro Molto, and intense and appropriately bleak in the final pair of Adagios, the last of which vanished into nothingness.
It would have been depressing to end the first half with the mood of the Shostakovich still in our souls, so it was brilliant to program William Alwyn’s Concerto for Oboe, String Orchestra and Harp at this very moment. Suddenly we left the bleakness of Moscow under Stalin and took a cheerful ramble through the English countryside with principal oboist Joshua Lauretig as our guide. A thoroughly jolly, pastoral work, the concerto was written for Evelyn Rothwell. Lauretig, a student of Danna Sundet, was a thoroughly confident soloist, playing with a lovely dark tone and negotiating his sometimes elaborate part with charm and grace. (He’s also both oboist and English hornist in the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, and will play part of a Lebrun concerto with them in Severance Hall during the MLK Community Open House Day in January: try to catch it!)
After intermission, David Holland returned to conduct Alan Hovhanness’ And God Created Great Whales, which featured the recorded vocalizations of a number of those great sea creatures emerging from the orchestral texture. Out of a watery orchestral fog came a big brass tune and something resembling a Celtic melody from the first violins. Bellowing trombones answered the whale cries and slowed-down whale music inspired growls from the orchestra. It all ended with a great din. Mr. Holland might have let the last note ring for a moment to good effect, but what a fun piece.
Project Trio’s Greg Pattillo, Eric Stephenson and Peter Seymour, flutist, cellist and bassist respectively, met at the Cleveland Institute of Music and decided to form a genre-bending chamber group around Patillo’s talent for beat boxing. They played some of their own compositions with special orchestral parts designed for CYO as well as a few of their own tunes (“Winter in June” and a witty five-minute condensation of “The Nutcracker Suite”). All of the pieces were easy to listen to and presented no great challenges for CYO, whose musicians seem to have enjoyed being the backup band for the Trio.
The Trio sat in with the orchestra for the concluding work, Aaron Jay Kernis’ New Era Dance, written to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic in 2000 (with a nod to the Millenium as well). Kernis has successfully represented the caffeinated, nonstop din of New York City, complete with sirens and police whistles, in a noisy, busy, syncopated work that must be great fun to play. Toward the end, the orchestra is made to chant “New Era” in a litany that grows in intensity, before shameless movie music takes over and the Dance finally terminates in squalls of low brass. A good time was had by all!
Photograph of Liza Grossman, Project Trio and Contemporary Youth Orchestra by Robert Muller from CYO's Facebook gallery.
