Las Vegas, German symphonies trade soloists in cultural exchange

Donato Cabrera, music director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic, definitely will not be conducting “It’s a Small World” at The Smith Center Saturday.

Yet the cheery Disney ditty could serve as a theme song for the concert, which launches a fellowship with Germany’s Cottbus State Theater Orchestra — led by former Las Vegan Evan Christ, who has known Cabrera since their student days in Nevada’s all-state band.

The American German Cultural Exchange Fellowship begins with Saturday’s Smith Center concert, where award-winning German violinist Tobias Feldmann will join the Philharmonic to perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major.

The exchange continues Nov. 18-20 in Germany, where American violinist Alexi Kenney will play Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto with Christ and the Cottbus State Theater Orchestra. (Cottbus is about 78 miles southeast of Berlin.)

Christ plans to attend Saturday’s concert with fellowship underwriter Dorothee Hennings-Holtman, while Cabrera will travel to Cottbus later this month to hear Kenney’s performance.

Hennings-Holtman, the widow of a longtime arts supporter who “was also a connoisseur of American music, especially American West Coast culture and music,” first approached a German culture minister about four years ago to discuss an exchange program, Christ notes in a telephone interview.

“Obviously, I’m an American working in Germany,” he adds, and his knowledge of the Las Vegas Philharmonic and friendship with Cabrera made the pairing a natural choice.

And so the Vegas-Cottbus exchange became official.

“This all stems from the initial meeting of two passionate young people” captivated by classical music, Cabrera points out in a separate telephone interview. “What a gift classical music has been to us, that we could continue that friendship and that passion.”

Christ’s mother — the late Linda Miller, a violinist and violist — was principal violist of a previous Las Vegas orchestra, the Nevada Symphony, he explains. (Some of those Nevada Symphony musicians now play in the Philharmonic.)

Christ also remembers watching his mother play in showroom orchestras for such Strip legends as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace.

“I would sit in the sound booth and listen in,” he recalls.

After attending Twin Lakes Elementary and Gibson Junior High schools, Christ went to Western High School, where he played oboe in the band and orchestra and served as the marching band’s drum major. (One of his teachers, Stephen Caplan, is the Las Vegas Philharmonic’s principal oboist.)

In all-state band, Christ was the first oboe and Cabrera was the first horn. Cabrera says Christ was “the first person I’d ever met who was equally passionate about classical music as I was.” Both also were interested in conducting.

When the four-day band session ended, Christ went to Harvard while Cabrero went to the University of Nevada, Reno.

Their next in-person encounter came 14 years later, in Austria in the summer of 2002. Both had Herbert von Karajan Fellowships for Young Conductors and were working with members of the Vienna Philharmonic at the renowned Salzburg Festival.

“We started becoming closer friends and hanging out,” says Christ, who’s spent two decades in Europe pursuing classical music.

“We just sort of couldn’t believe that two kids from Nevada were conducting fellows at Salzburg,” Cabrera adds. Beyond the Silver State connection, however, “what binds this all together is this love for the art form.”

Although Cabrera — who recently received a three-year contract extension from Philharmonic officials — hasn’t worked with violinist Feldmann, “I remember seeing him in the live stream of the Queen Elisabeth Competition” in Brussels, which Feldmann won in 2015, “and greatly admiring his musicianship. He’s certainly a very appropriate choice to play Beethoven.”

But not necessarily because he’s German.

“What I love about his playing is this nobility and this old soul — the way he presents himself,” Cabrera explains. “It really matches Tobias’ personality.”

In the same vein, Christ notes, having an American soloist such as Kenney perform Barber in Germany, where the composer is “almost completely unknown,” will “bring a kind of know-how and Samuel Barber spirit. It’s a matter of interpretation, a matter of pacing.”

Unlike most Philharmonic concerts, Saturday’s doesn’t feature a work by a living American composer.

Instead, audiences will hear two symphonies — Mozart’s very first, which he composed at the age of 8, and Haydn’s 104th, which is known as the “London” symphony for the composer’s British residency.

“Consciously or unconsciously, the Philharmonic has never really performed much Haydn at all,” Cabrera says of the composer, who mentored Mozart and taught Beethoven.

And with the “London Symphony,” Cabrera says, audiences will find “a master composer, creating a perfect symphony,” one in which listeners “can see the influence Haydn had on both Beethoven and Mozart.”

Read more stories from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.