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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > June > 23
Monday, June 23, 2008
Review: The Axis Quintet
Austin Classical Guitar Society brilliantly blazed new ground Friday night with its presentation of the Axis Quintet, featuring guitarist Jorge Caballero, and the premiere of a new piece by Argentine composer Jorge Morel.
An ambitious commission from the Austin Classical Guitar Society, Morel’s ‘Songs and Dances for Guitar Quintet’ was an engaging, colorful rhapsody in miniature. Morel artfully combined distinctive stylings from a myriad musical genres — modernistic Gershwin-like turns, folkloric rhythms, cinematic sweeps and a lyrical romantic melody that floated throughout — into a one jewel-like delight. Impressively, Morel covered a very wide and deep emotional and artistic territory in one 10-minute musical gesture.
Presented at the Mexican-American Cultural Center, Friday’s concert, the first of two this past weekend, was an homage of sorts to Latin American music.
In addition to the Morel premiere, the program included Manuel Ponce’s Sonata for Guitar and Harpsichord and three tangos by Astor Piazzolla. Both were presented with Caballero’s own thoughtful, smart arrangements that nicely maximized the varied richness of a string quartet.
Combined with the quartet’s nimble and alert style, Caballero’s arrangements felt fresh and lively. Still, for all the sharp energy they exuded, the Axis players — Maria Conti, Kryzysztof Kuznik, Alissa Smith and Jameson Platte — remained warm and sensitive in their overall tone and mood. There’s nothing fussy to this ensemble — just smart, focused emotionally keen playing.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s vigorous Quintetto Op. 135 rounded out the program.
The Mexican-American Cultural Center’s sleek modern architecture made for a fitting setting for the astute and thoroughly engaging performance. The auditorium, with its white chiseled concrete walls, provided an acoustically pleasant, clear-sounding venue without any harsh tones. Kudos for Austin Classical Guitar Society for colonizing the Mexican-American Cultural Center as a classical music venue. And kudos to the organization for spearheading the on-going growth of the classical guitar repertoire with the Morel commission.
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Review: Verdi’s Messa da Requiem
Grammy-nominated Austin chorus Conspirare often defies — what other superlatives to praise the vocal ensemble led by Craig Hella Johnson?
With Conspirare’s performance of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem Saturday night at the Long Center, we can add ‘profound’ to the list.
Johnson, the 200-plus member chorus, four soloists and the orchestra made transcendent a musical masterpiece already considered a stroke of Verdi’s genius in concentrated form. And Johnson concentrated that genius even more into a mesmirizing 90-minute musical miracle.
Perhaps that’s because as transcendent as the performance itself was the glorious sound of the acoustically-smart Dell Hall. To be sure, Johnson demonstrated that he has a clear mastery over the new hall, bringing the edge of the proscenium as far out into the hall as the flexible staging system would allow and even placing trumpet players in orchestra-level boxes for the dramatic ‘Tuba mirum’ movement.
The result was spine-tingling clear and rich sound that had a fullness and liveness never heard in Austin before. For years, Austin audiences have had to put up with inferior-sounding fine arts halls, Bass Concert Hall being the most prominent. Bass swallowed sound, altogether deadening it at times. (Bass it is currently undergoing renovations that include planned improvements to the acoustics.) Dell Hall celebrates and distinguishes every note, giving each palpable resonance that extends to the very farthest row.
Of course, none of the superior acoustics matter unless the performance itself is not also superior as Johnson’s emotionally-charged interpretation proved Saturday. (Johnson and the ensemble performed the Requiem Friday night in Victoria as part of the 2008 Victoria Bach Festival of which Johnson is artistic director.)
Verdi’s Requiem is an emotional rollercoaster, rocketing back and forth between disparate moods and musical colorations. It’s magnificent pictorial sweep has the potential to overwhelm. But when its dramatic depth is smartly plumed, as Johnson did Saturday, the Requiem’s emotional force can pack an enormous and meaningful whollop. And this was a Requiem performance to be reckoned with: the smaller moments of light and peace perfectly underpinning the rolling, wild waves of sadness and fright that form the backbone of Verdi’s funeral tribute.
The quartet of soloists — soprano Kallen Esperian, mezzo-soprano Robynne Redmon, tenor Karl Dent and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn — each delivered richly-rewarding performances with their combined talents making the quartet work on the ‘Lacrymosa’ achingly beautiful. Redmon sounded particularly resonant and Esperian deftly handling the considerably challenging ‘Libera me’ solo at the finale.
Johnson has never not delivered an emotionally resonant performance. But with his Requiem on Saturday, he created a singularly majestic moment.
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Review: ‘Pirates of Penzance’
In 2003, when Ralph MacPhail first staged ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ for the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin, he demonstrated a refined sense of the style and got sparkling performances from several of the cast. Returning to ‘Pirates’ the GSSA’s show on Saturday evening at Crockett High School, again staged by MacPhail, lacked sparkle or any substantial dramatic or musical focus. It surely didn’t help that it was everyone’s second public performance of the day.
With Crockett’s basic proscenium stage and no orchestra pit, even the stronger voices disappeared if their owners weren’t downstage, and wind players in the orchestra consistently covered singers. Music director Jeffrey Jones-Ragona kept the music together and moving in a general way, but it never once took on dramatic life.
Most everyone had moments of sloppy singing: not simply notes out of tune, but notes that clearly had little to do with the musical context. David Fontenot as the pirate king was particularly guilty. Carol Brown and Holton Johnson got all of their notes as the protagonists Mabel and Frederic, though those notes were not especially pretty. Janette Jones as Ruth and Russell Gregory as the police sergeant were vocally ragged, but Jones’s words were clear and Gregory delivered the comedic goods. Arthur DiBianca as the major general, speaking and singing with a wisp of a voice, was simply inadequate.
Three women shone in minor roles as other daughters of the major general, Lisa Alexander, Patricia Combs and Angela Irving. They sang pleasantly and accurately, slipping their lines and themselves in and out of the action adroitly.
Austin’s Gilbert & Sullivan ensemble on a good night can achieve better than average
community theater. Saturday was not one of those nights.
[David Mead is an American-Statesman freelance critic.]
‘Pirates of Penzance’ continues 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Crockett High School, 5601 Manchaca Road. $25 ($20 students). www.gilbertsullivan.org.
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