OVERNIGHT REVIEW: The Colburn Orchestra opens season at Ambassador Auditorium

By Robert D. Thomas

Music Critic

Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News

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The Colburn Orchestra; Yehuda Gilad, conductor; Francisca da Pasquale, violin

Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture, Dvorak: Violin Concerto

Mussorgsky/Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition

Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011 • Ambassador Auditorium

Next concert: Oct. 22

Information: www.colburnschool.edu

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Although experience and maturity count for much in the classical music world, there's also something to be said for youthful exuberance, especially when its married to the kind of exceptional talent that permeates the student body at The Colburn School in downtown Los Angeles.

 

Colburn is the west coast equivalent of The Juilliard School in New York City or the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and the school's flagship ensemble, The Colburn Orchestra, opened its 2011-2012 season last night in impressive fashion before a full house at Ambassador Auditorium. Although approximately 30 percent of the orchestra turns over annually and school has been in session only a few weeks, Music Director Yehuda Gilad had his young charges playing with precision, power and musicality throughout the program.

 

Gilad and Co. opened with a performance of Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture that was sumptuous and spirited, depending on the composer's wishes. As they did all evening, the string sections produced deep, sonorous tones in the welcoming Ambassador Auditorium acoustic and English horn principal John Winstead got things rolling with his plaintive solo lines.

 

Choosing Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is a good way to show off any orchestra's virtuosity and The Colburn Orchestra has that in abundance. Gilad led a sensitive, highly individual performance of this familiar work, emphasizing silences effectively and letting his principals and sections shine. That list includes Trumpeter Joseph Brown, Tubist Spencer Brown, the entire brass section and the full woodwind contingent.

 

Gilad had some distinctive ideas with regard to tempos. Bydlo (the oxcart) was something of a turbocharged vehicle and Baba Yaga (The Hut on Fowl's Legs) also raced forward, but the latter led to a majestic rendition of The Great Gate of Kiev that concluded the evening gloriously.

 

Prior to intermission, 20-year-old Francesca dePasquale, a senior in the Bachelor of Music program at The Colburn Conservatory, delivered a polished reading of Dvorak's Violin Concerto. DePasquale (a student of Robert Lipsett at Colburn) displayed a silvery tone and impressive technique throughout the performance, although her tone turned edgy occasionally in the final movement. She played the middle-movement theme with great sweetness and danced her way impressively through the final movement's lighter moments. She also smiled more during the final movement dispelling the mood of her grimaces in the previous movements. The winner of last year's Irving M. Klein String Competition in San Francisco, dePasquale (who is serving this year as one of the orchestra's concertmasters) is clearly a talent to watch in the future.

 

Gilad and the orchestra offered sympathetic accompaniment to dePasquale, and the audience -- which obviously included fellow students, parents and other Colburn supporters -- responded exuberantly, as it did for all three pieces.

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Hemidemisemiquavers:

• One of the finer advantages of attending Colburn Orchestra concerts are the comprehensive and erudite music notes written by Colburn students -- in this case, violist Matthew Cohen, violinist and pianist Bora Kim, and oboist Titus Underwood, all of whom played in the orchestra.

• DePasquale clearly comes from a musical family; among the people she lists in her bio as mentors are four people with the last name of dePasquale.

• Given that the 1,400 free tickets for last night's concert were distributed a week before the concert, you might want to sign up now to make sure you don't get shut out for the Oct. 22 concert. Click HERE for details.

• This year marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Richard D. Colburn, the school's founder and namesake.

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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.