Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Philharmonic shows its maturity in season premiere

Five years ago, the Las Vegas Philharmonic was little more than a thought, a hope, a plan to revive classical music performance in a city that had recently, figuratively, shrugged its shoulders at such a repertoire.

Now, there are more than 1,000 subscribers to its season, Artemus Ham Hall is usually filled (with the addition of single-ticket sales) when it performs and the conductor and orchestra are offering programs that are more sophisticated -- yet still more successful than the events during the inaugural season.

"The orchestra," explained one audience member to a new Las Vegas resident at intermission, "is really maturing. It's really coming into its own."

Few would disagree, as the 74-member orchestra played three distinctive works in its 2003-2004 season premiere Saturday. The theme was "The Spirit of America." The orchestra is under the direction of music director Harold Weller, who came to Las Vegas after 15 years with the Flagstaff, Ariz., symphony and is entering his sixth season here.

The most ambitious selection of the evening was Antonin Dvorak's "From the New World," Symphony No. 9, Op. 95. Dvorak? A Bohemian peasant who loved Czech music, included in an all-American program? Yes, certainly, since the symphony was influenced greatly by the black and American Indian music that Dvorak heard during his visit to the United States when he was commissioned to compose it.

He completed the symphony in 1893 in Spillville, Iowa -- with a European compositional pattern but an all-American blend. Some experts say it was one of the first compositions to validate the sounds of America.

It is not a selection that can be performed on a whim. Its intensities, roots and underlying points and counterpoints give it a certain complexity that, now, the Philharmonic presented with aplomb.

The featured performer was David Korevaar, a member of the University of Colorado at Boulder piano faculty, who has performed throughout the United States and in Australia, Japan, Korea and Europe.

He played Barber's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 38 with the Philharmonic. (In a sad footnote, the work was written for the late John Browning, who did not play this concerto when he performed with the Philharmonic here in March 2002.) Korevaar, unassuming but skilled, rose to the challenge of the varied tempo, tone and attitude of the work. Emotion expressed energy, unity and joy -- then changed to dissonance and a reinvention of the theme before a bravura that ended the first movement. The second movement was easier, then expansive, while the final section was adamant at the beginning, with a subsequent, complementary piano accompaniment to generous contributions by the orchestra, be it horns, string, percussion or harp. Fingering and hand-over-hand work was spotlighted throughout the performance, with Korevaar occasionally leaning into the keyboard, exposing his fundamental talent.

The evening began with an uplifting "Star-Spangled Banner" and William Schuman's "New England Triptych," a buoyant inspiration from three Revolutionary War songs attributed to William Billings. Pride, contemplation and bright energy added to a melodic, sometimes solemn but ultimately energetic and tuneful remembrance of America as it once was -- and could again can be: a dissonant but still united and energetic world.

It's unlikely that the Philharmonic could have presented a similar program with such success on its inaugural evening. The works, and the successful offering, bode well for the upcoming season.