Fairfax Symphony conductor search

The Fairfax Symphony has named six finalists to succeed William Hudson, who has conducted the orchestra since 1971.

The finalists, one of whom will become music director in the 2009-10 season, are:

* Paul Haas, former music director of the New York Youth Symphony.

* Marcelo Lehninger, music advisor of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas.

* Laura Jackson, a native of Roanoke, former assistant conductor of the Atlanta Symphony.

* Daniel Meyer, resident conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony and music director of the Asheville (NC) Symphony and Erie (PA) Philharmonic. (Meyer is also one of the nine finalists for music director of the Richmond Symphony.)

* Gregory Vajda, resident conductor of the Oregon Symphony.

* Christopher Zimmerman, music director of the Hartt (CN) Symphony.

VCU winds at Carnegie Hall

Virginia Commonwealth University's Symphonic Wind Ensemble, directed by Terry Austin, will perform in the finale of the New York Wind Band Festival at 8 p.m. March 18 at Carnegie Hall. The concert, also featuring the Furman University Wind Ensemble, will conclude a three-day event drawing student wind musicians from across the country.

Tickets are $20, and may be ordered by calling the Carnegie Hall box office at (212) 247-7800, or at www.carnegiehall.org

Review: Richmond Symphony

March 2, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland

Erin Freeman, the Richmond Symphony’s associate conductor, led chamber contingents of the orchestra and Richmond Symphony Chorus in a darkly expressive, rhythmically taut reading of Johann Sebastian Bach’s early cantata "Christ lag in Todesbanden" ("Christ Lay in the Bonds of Death"), BWV 4, sure to be remembered as one of the highlights of this season’s Bach Festival series.

Freeman paired the cantata with the comparably austere "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten" by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, a brief, proto-minimalist work for strings and bells that, although separated from the Bach by two and a half centuries, proved to be a striking introduction to the cantata.

The chorus, whose direction Freeman assumed this season, was trimmed to two dozen voices (among them, founding chorusmaster James Erb, singing in the tenor section), providing the right balance for the small string orchestra. The singers’ ensemble was generally unified and their diction good, but they could not compensate for the dry acoustic of Randolph-Macon College’s Blackwell Auditorium.

Dry sound also affected the more cheerful second half of the program, devoted to Johann Christian Bach’s Sinfonia in B flat major, Op. 18, No. 2, and Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 101 in D major, known as "the Clock" for the tick-tock tempo of its andante.

Gustav Highstein’s gracefully lyrical oboe solo in the andante was the high point of the Bach sinfonia, a fine example of the early classical or rococo style of the mid-18th century.

Haydn’s meatier symphony, one of the best-known of the symphonies he wrote for performances in London in the 1790s, received a solid "big-band" treatment, emphatic in its gestures and blunt in its accents. Like many conductors, Freeman has yet to master the peculiar rhythmic character – the musical equivalent of hydroplaning wheels on a wet surface – of Haydn’s string writing at the speediest tempos.

Review: Pascal Rogé

March 1, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond

Pascal Rogé, the eminent French pianist, turned what might have been a didactic exercise – a survey of the forms of piano music that Chopin bequeathed to subsequent generations of French composers – into two long suites of exquisite pianism and well-judged stylistic contrast.

Rogé began with three examples of the nocturne, with Chopin’s unusually stark, even severe Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1, bracketed by the more sensuous first nocturnes of Fauré and Poulenc. He went on to contrast three waltzes from Ravel’s "Valses Nobles et Sentimentales" with the familiar Chopin Waltz in C sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2; and three Chopin etudes, Op. 25, Nos. 1 and 10, and Op. 10, No. 12, with the great "Etude pour les arpèges composées" of Debussy. All that flowed with pauses of no more than two seconds between pieces.

The less crowded but no less formidable second half featured Chopin’s preludes in D flat major, Op. 28, No. 15, and B minor, Op. 28, No. 6 and six Debussy preludes, including the familiar "La Fille aux Cheveux de lin" and "La terrasse des audiences au clair de lune," between the little-known Ballade of Debussy and much-loved Ballade in F minor, Op. 52, of Chopin.

The most lingering impressions Rogé left were of clarity and moderation. He showed few flashes of temperament, even in Chopin’s fiery B minor Etude and the tempestuous measures of Op. 52, and adhered strictly – not quite pedantically – to the tempos and ritards of the dance pieces.

Compensating for this seeming lack of spontaneity, the pianist exposed every strand and faithfully rendered every subtlety of harmony and color in this music. He let it speak for itself, which it did with memorable eloquence.

Review: 'Eugene Onegin'

Virginia Opera
Feb. 29, Landmark Theater, Richmond

Tchaikovsky’s opera "Eugene Onegin," like most of his instrumental music, is a deeply internalized drama. Its storyline, from Pushkin’s verse-novel, is a straightfoward romantic tragedy of manners; its scenic elements, in the Russian countryside and a palace in St. Petersburg, are sightly, glitteringly so in a pair of ball scenes, but no more than decorative. The drama hinges almost entirely on the singers’ projections of their characters’ emotional lives.

The Virginia Opera’s production (its first of a Russian opera) boasts a vocally capable but dramatically variable cast. Soprano Veronica Mitina, as Tatiana, is quite credible as a naïve young girl smitten but spurned by Onegin, a suave, jaded houseguest – she is passionate but suitably girlish in the lengthy "letter" aria – and matures convincingly into the regal beauty who swallows her regrets and turns away Onegin a few years later.

Tenor Patrick Miller is comparably characterful and in similarly excellent voice as the romantic poet Lensky, who introduces Onegin to Tatiana, then falls in a duel with Onegin in a rivalry over the attention of her sister, Olga.

Baritone Jason Detwiler has the voice for Onegin, but doesn’t really bring off the character’s self-absorption and arrogance. He improves as the hopeless suitor of the last act.

Mezzo-soprano Oksana Sitnitska’s is an attractive Olga, if slightly too hefty in voice for the role. Mezzos Susan Shafer, as Larina, the girls’ mother, and Barbara Dever, the nurse Filippievna, make fine work of their nostalgic duet in Act 1. Tenor Omar Salam, as the mincingly comic Monsieur Triquet, and bass Todd Robinson, as Tatiana’s husband, Prince Gremin, stand out in their cameos.The cast’s Russian sounds pretty consistent – that is, the Americans sound about as fluent as Mitina, who is Russian, and Sitnitska, who is Ukrainian.

Julia Pevzner’s stage direction is unfussily effective. Alexander Lisiyansky’s scenic design is minimal but evocative, although the great revolving arm of an unseen windmill seems more distracting than symbolic (assuming it was intended to be symbolic).

The company’s chorus and dancers make the most of their offstage folk choruses and ball scenes. The orchestra, conducted by Peter Mark, is warmly expressive but rather underpowered, and decidedly under-accented in the dance numbers.

The production's final performance, with Joseph Walsh conducting, is at 2:30 p.m. March 2 at Richmond's Landmark Theater. Tickets: $20-$85. Details: (804) 262-8003 (Ticketmaster); http://www.vaopera.org/

Review: Oberon Quartet

Feb. 27, Bannard Chapel, St. Catherine’s School

Richmond’s belated adoption of its native daughter, the composer and pianist Mary Howe, continued as the Oberon Quartet revived two of Howe’s chamber pieces, "Canción Romanesca" (1930) and "Three Emily Dickinson Pieces" (1941).

Howe (1882-1964), who spent most of her life in Washington, worked on the borderline between romantic and modern musical style. Her harmonic language and color sensitivity were informed by the French impressionists, while her thematic material and use of rhapsodic forms mark her as a late romantic.

"Three Emily Dickinson Pieces," an instrumental work inspired by the Dickinson poems "The Summers of Hesperides," "Birds, by the snow" and "God for a frontier," is a relatively long-form work – effectively a three-movement string quartet – in which literary evocations and representations of bird-song are shrouded in complex, occasionally dense harmonizations.

"Canción Romanesca" is a shorter, lighter work recalling the chamber-cum-parlor pieces of Edward Elgar, although it’s hard to imagine Elgar inserting a tango into the proceedings, as Howe does.

The Oberon – violinists Alana Carithers and Susy Yim, violist Molly Sharp and cellist William Comita – played the Howe works with concentration, tonal warmth and sensitivity to her subtle harmonies and colors.

The group was joined by John Winn, a Richmonder best known as a jazz musician, in performances of his "Songs for Modern Times" (2005) and "Adirondack Suite" (2003) for strings, harp (played by Lynette Wardle) and clarinet and soprano saxophone (played by the composer).

Winn’s set of five songs, which he sang in a whispery croon, are in a jazz-inflected pop style. "Silent Mode" or "A Tree That Leans" recall the more wistful John Lennon; "Busy" invites the theatrical delivery of a Broadway vocalist; "What You Eat," with its Bartókian instrumental effects, hovers between art-song and operatic recitative.

Winn’s "Adirondack Suite" is a soundtrack-in-waiting for a travelogue of New York’s north country. Its best moments come in the central piece, "On the Lake – The Big Fish," with its swimming tonal effects and burst of animation as the fish is hooked. Winn’s jazz grounding is evident in the piece’s frequent use of syncopated rhythms and employment of blue notes.

The program opened with the Polonaise (1999) by Jonathan Mott, former concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony. This attractive miniature is essentially a solo-violin showcase with string-trio accompaniment; Yim, the lead violinist, played stylishly but leaned too woozily into sliding effects.

Richmond Symphony names music director finalists

The Richmond Symphony has named nine finalists from nearly 250 applicants to succeed Mark Russell Smith as the orchestra’s music director.

William H. Schwarzschild III, secretary of the symphony board and chairman of the 10-member conductor search committee, described the candidates as "competitive, accomplished, international in scope and full of connections to the wider musical world."

The candidates, dates of their Richmond appearances and selected career highlights:

* Mikhail Agrest (September 2008): A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, Agrest joined the conducting staff of that city’s Mariinsky Theatre in 2001 and has toured internationally with the company. He also has conducted the English National Opera and BBC Symphony in Britain, as well as the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig in Germany, other orchestras in France, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Hungary and the United States, and opera companies in France, Sweden and Australia.

* Daniel Meyer (October 2008): Resident conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony and music director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony, Asheville (NC) Symphony and Erie (PA) Philharmonic, Meyer won the 2002 Aspen Conducting Prize at the Colorado music festival. He formerly was assistant conductor of the Knoxville (TN) Symphony and its Youth Sinfonia and was assistant conductor of the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati. He has conducted the Cleveland Orchestra, Utah Symphony and other ensembles.

* Steven Smith (November 2008): Now in his seventh season as music director of the Santa Fe (NM) Symphony & Chorus, Smith also is music director of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, an ensemble specializing in contemporary music. He was assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and music director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, associate conductor of the Kansas City Symphony, assistant conductor of the Colorado Springs Symphony and concertmaster of the Grand Rapids (MI) Symphony. He has guest conducted orchestras in the U.S., Mexico, New Zealand and Asia.

* Marc Taddei (January 2009): Named last year as music director of the Vector Wellington Orchestra in New Zealand’s capital, Taddei formerly led the Christchurch Symphony in New Zealand. He also has conducted orchestras in the U.S., Australia and Hong Kong, and has led numerous recordings, including works of several New Zealand composers and the soundtrack of a British television film based on Wagner’s "Ring" cycle.

* Arthur Post (February 2009): Now in his sixth season as music director of the San Juan Symphony of Durango, CO, and Farmington, NM, Post was resident conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony and New World Symphony in Florida and associate conductor of the Israel Philharmonic. He has conducted orchestras throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. His "Music on the Inside," an educational program in improvisation and composition, has been used in classrooms in four states.

* Dorian Wilson (March 2009): Music director of the Belgrade Philharmonic in Serbia since 2006, Wilson formerly was music director of the Theater Vorpommern opera company in Germany, second conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic and first guest conductor of the Russian National Orchestra. Winner of nine international conducting competitions between 1989 and 1996, he has conducted orchestras and opera companies in Russia, Germany, Sweden, France, Denmark and the Netherlands.

* Alastair Willis (September 2009): Formerly assistant conductor and resident conductor of the Seattle Symphony, assistant conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops and music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, Willis has performed with the Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony and other orchestras in the U.S., China, France and Austria.

* Christian Knapp (October 2009): Formerly associate conductor of the Seattle Symphony and Broomhill Opera in London, Knapp has led several contemporary music ensembles in the U.S. and Britain and has conducted orchestras in the U.S., Russia, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico.

* Arthur Fagen (November 2009): Music director of the Dortmund Philharmonic and Dortmund Opera in Germany since 2002, Fagen has conducted at the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera and other opera companies in the U.S., Germany, France, Israel and Argentina, and orchestras in U.S., Europe, Israel and Japan.

Each finalist will conduct a program in the mainstage Masterwork series and another concert in classical, pops or outreach series. Programs for the first six candidates in 2008-09 season will be announced in several weeks.

The first six will perform in the church sanctuaries and other venues the symphony is now using, while the last three candidates are to appear after the scheduled reopening of the Carpenter Theatre of Richmond CenterStage, the orchestra’s renovated downtown venue.

The new music director, the symphony’s fifth since its founding in 1957, is expected to be named by the end of 2009, said David Fisk, the orchestra’s executive director and a member of the search committee.

The committee’s members, in addition to Schwarzschild and Fisk, are symphony board members O. Christian Bedrup Jr., Margaret W. Swartz and Mary Denny Wray and five orchestra musicians: flutist-piccolo player Ann Choomack, clarinetist Jared Davis, principal oboist Gustav Highstein, principal timpanist James Jacobson and cellist Ryan Lannan.