USO May 18 in Center Theater

YOUTHFUL VIRTUOSITY ON DISPLAY AT USO'S MAY CONCERTS

The final concert of the Ukiah Symphony's 2024-2025 season featured the winners of the Orchestra's Youth Concerto Competition, for which entrants must be undergraduate student musicians. Winners were flutist Sungdu Bae, a senior at Sonoma State University, and violinist Serena She, a freshman conservatory student at Valley Christian High in San Jose. In addition to the winners' performances, the May 17/18 programs included the Adagio for Strings by contemporary composer Adolphus Hailstork and Dvorák's 8th Symphony.

Conductor Phillip Lenberg prefaced the concert with a 30-minute talk, rather in the style of Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, that provided background for the Dvorák and included brief recorded samples to illustrate how its themes were to be presented and developed.

Similar to Barber's celebrated Adagio for Strings, composer Mr. Hailstork's 2007 composition, while performed by an orchestra's full string section of first and second violins, violas, and cellos, is actually a movement from his first string quartet. The work opens in D major with a few moments of foreboding atonality in the violins over sustained chords in the lower strings but then transitions to A-Flat Major for the remainder of the approximately six minute piece, with its final resolution dying away into silence.

An equally brief work followed: the first movement of French composer Ibert's charming 1932 Flute Concerto. It's a challenging work for both the soloist and the orchestra, with the flute part alternating between pyrotechnic runs and arpeggios of 16th notes and more lyrical sustained passages.

Next on the program was one of the grand showpieces of the violin and orchestra literature, Saint-Saëns's Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. It was composed in 1863 expressly for Pablo de Sarasate, a virtuoso of his era. Sarasate was something of a Wunderkind, making his first public performance in his native Spain at age eight and admitted to the Paris Conservatoire four years later. He came to Saint-Saëns's attention at 15 and was still only 19 when the piece was written for him, although Sarasate did not premier the work, with the composer conducting, until four years later. All the more appropriate, then, that 14 year old Ms. She performed it with the USO.

As an orchestra member, I've played behind many young soloists, and some of them are frighteningly good technically, but somehow cold, like a perfect musical robot. Not so Ms. She, as seemingly effortless technical proficiency was certainly on display, as well as flawless intonation and beautiful tone. In addition, there was a level of emotion and interpretation that seemed, from my seat in the cello section, far beyond her years. I was also impressed by conductor Phillip Lenberg's sensitivity in following her occasional changes in tempo and emphasis of line, helping us supporting musicians to play our part in presenting the music.

The rousing finale of the piece was enthusiastically applauded at both the Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon concerts.

The final piece was Dvorák’s G Major Symphony, Op. 88. Written and orchestrated in a remarkably short two months in 1889, it's not only short for a Romantic symphony, at under 40 minutes, but one of Dvorák's most cheerful works, and perhaps his most Bohemian, incorporating many folk motifs from his Czech homeland.

It's also a favorite of us orchestral cellists, as we get to present both the opening melody of the first movement, and (after a trumpet fanfare) that of the Allegro ma non troppo finale. After this cello lyricism, supported by (of all things) muted trombones and the introduction of a birdsong-like flute theme, the first movement alternates between pastoral evocations of the Bohemian landscape and stormy interludes.

The second movement is more introspective and sometimes enlarges on the flute’s birdsong motifs, opening in E-Flat Major, with a dramatic C Minor development before a quieter ending in C Major. The third movement, while not rigidly following the Scherzo form, emulates it beginning with a lilting Allegro grazioso waltz in G Minor, a G Major Trio, and a final, surprising coda in G Major. The fourth movement, in G Major with an interlude in C Minor, is a theme and variations, and remarkable in how many different moods and colors Dvorák can evoke from only two melodic figures, each eight bars long. Quieter variations of the theme, reminiscent of a Bohemian folk song, are bookended by cheerful verbatim recurrences of the original presentation. A final, almost wistful section seems to bring the movement to a quiet end until a sudden boisterous fortissimo coda brings the piece to an exhilarating (and accelerating) close.

As an orchestra and chamber player, I've always enjoyed Dvorák. His works are approachable for both the audience and the musicians, whether accidentally or more likely by careful design. His string parts are eminently playable (“they fall right into one's hands”) perhaps because the composer was a string player himself. I'm assured by my woodwind and brass colleagues that their parts are equally rewarding. Mr. Lenberg's conducting, with a solid beat and accurate cues, brought out the spirit of the music. I can only hope that I might have the chance to sit in with the Ukiah Symphony for their next season beginning in September.

Reviewer's note: This review is unavoidably subjective: I play cello in the Sonoma County Philharmonic and joined the USO’s cellists for the concert in Mendocino College’s Center Theater.