Music review: Conrad Tao Plays Rachmaninoff with Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony

 

Only after 16-year-old Conrad Tao blazed through Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” with Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall on Thursday did he confront the obvious: “Hi, everybody; I’m not Yuja Wang!” he said, right before offering a stunning performance of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 as an encore.

It was a charming moment. Tao replaced Wang, a Chinese pianist eight years his senior, after she canceled due to illness.

An American from Urbana, Ill., Tao thrilled the Segerstrom audience. In a dashing account of Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody,” his attacks were crisp, with rhythmically tricky high-velocity passages cleanly articulated. Throughout, there was a sense that Tao was having fun. Always in motion, he shadow-played on his lap during short orchestral interludes.

In Variation 18, with its big lyrical tune, the pianist became a bit deliberate, and the orchestra pushed and pulled the melody around. Even so, Tao avoided sentimentality, his concentration drawing us into the composer’s spare and witty work as few virtuosos of any age can do.

The concert began with St.Clair’s moving account of Bohuslav Martinu’s “Memorial to Lidice.” Martinu wrote the piece to honor and mourn the people murdered and displaced by the Nazis in that Czechoslovakian town during World War II.

After intermission, the conductor returned with an emotionally intense reading of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. The performance was one of deep commitment and urgency. The Largo, one of the composer’s most profound, elegiac statements, was shattering. St.Clair and company didn’t stint on the more extrovert drama either. The thrilling Allegro finale found the orchestra -- especially the brasses -- in top form.

-- Rick Schultz

 Photo: Conrad Tao. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Dance review: Royal Danish Ballet performs a revamped, updated 'Napoli' at Segerstrom Center for the Arts

For Nikolaj Hubbe, artistic direction is clearly a daredevil occupation.

In the 2009 production of  August Bournonville's full-length “Napoli” that Hubbe's Royal Danish Ballet brought to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts on Friday, he and Sorella Englund took a 169-year-old national treasure, updated it to the 1950s, junked the Christian symbolism that used to play an important part in the plot and replaced the badly eroded second act with new music and choreography. In Denmark, that might seem close to high treason.

The story -- a happy Neapolitan peasant couple facing dangers both natural and supernatural -- remains the same, but Hubbe introduces radical shifts of emphasis. Some of the changes are merely decorative: the ballet's young lovers Gennaro and Teresina riding a motor scooter instead of a quaint wedding cart, for example. Others become more transformative, starting with the earthier, edgier mime scenes that dominate Act 1.

Unfortunately, for all its energy and invention, the new production doesn't eclipse memories of  the nearly perfect 1992 staging in which Hubbe gave a great performance on this same stage just before joining New York City Ballet. The crucial flow of mime into dance and back is much less artfully modulated now, directorial focus and pacing aren't always ideal and you don't have to be a born-again Christian to find the secularization of the narrative an indulgence rather than an improvement.

Music review: 'The Passion of Philip Glass' at Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall

The composer Philip Glass was on hand Thursday night for a pre-concert talk at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, and then turned up onstage with conductor Carl St.Clair to briefly introduce all three of his works on a program that repeats Friday and Saturday night called “The Passion of Philip Glass.”

Part of an ongoing monthlong Glass Festival in the Los Angeles area that includes the West Coast premiere of “Akhnaten” by Long Beach Opera, the Costa Mesa event reprised a major late Glass work, “The Passion of Ramakrishna,” that was premiered by the Pacific Symphony in 2006. An additional performance of “Ramakrishna" alone is scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

The piece is a 40-minute choral and symphonic tribute to a simple Hindu holy man whose book, the “Gospel of Ramakrishna,” greatly influenced the composer. Glass’ score movingly portrays the death and transformation of this 19^th century Indian spiritual leader. In its quiet intensity and subtle scene painting, it shows Glass in his element as a theater composer.

Since his early 20s, Glass, now 74, has composed 28 theater works. As each one became more daring and boldly expressive, the “minimalist” label attached to Glass for so many years started to fray, if not quite fall off, especially after his striking 1976 breakthrough opera “Einstein on the Beach.”

Injured concertmaster will miss Pacific Symphony Philip Glass program

Due to a finger injury, Pacific Symphony concertmaster and violinist Raymond Kobler will not be performing at this week's 's Pacific Symphony American Composer Festival program, "The Passion of Philip Glass."
 
Symphony spokeswoman Jayce Keane described the left-hand injury as a chronic issue, but "nothing serious." He will be replaced by the orchestra's associate concertmaster Paul Manaster for performances Thursday through Sunday.
 
The concerts at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall will showcase Glass' ties to Eastern musical traditions and feature the Pacific Chorale and soloists. Performances are being recorded by the Philips' label for future release, and include the Glass/Shankar composition "Meetings Along the Edge, from 'Passions' "; Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra and "Passion of Ramakrishna."
 
Kobler has held the position with the Pacific Symphony since 1999. He has appeared as a soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony among other U.S. orchestral institutions and, overseas, with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra.

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-- Christopher Smith