Concert review | ProMusica Chamber Orchestra: Farewell programs begin memorably
By Jennifer Hambrick
A rousing beginning, the world premiere of a commissioned work, a star soloist and a seasoned conductor. These ingredients of last night’s ProMusica Chamber Orchestra concert could describe any number of the orchestra’s performances during the last 34 years under its founding music director, Timothy Russell.
Part of Russell’s vision has been for ProMusica to catalyze the creation of new musical works. Russell led the orchestra and cello soloist Joshua Roman in the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis’ Dreamsongs for Solo Cello and Orchestra, ProMusica’s 59th commissioned work. Roman’s singing tone rang in delicious nuances through the sometimes lushly tonal, sometimes darkly dissonant first movement, Floating Dreamscapes. The orchestra drifted seamlessly between rich full-orchestra passages and moments of intimate chamber music like the gathering and dissipating of clouds.
In the second movement, Kora Song, Russell and the musicians journeyed through a dramatic fantasy evoking the plucked timbres and rocking rhythms of west African kora music. Roman’s virtuosic pizzicato passages, threadbare harmonics and soulful incantations were dazzling.
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