By Keith Kreitman
Concert review
California Youth Symphony’s two March concerts, held at the Flint Center in Cupertino and the San Mateo Performing Arts Center, reconfirmed for this reviewer that it is the Peninsula’s best symphony.
There is no orchestra with better tone, balance, dynamics, intonation and technical precision between those two professional groups, the San Francisco and San Jose Symphonies.
How can a orchestra composed of middle and high school students do it? Part of it is the excellent parental support, performer and teacher dedication and a conductor of the first rank, Leo Eylar. He fearlessly programs mature and highly technical works and the youngsters come through, with class.
This program was no less ambitious. No conductor would dare undertake the first work on the program, Georges Enesco’s colorful “Romanian Rhapsody no. 1 in A Major, op. 11,” without having full confidence that his woodwinds and brass could handle their exposed passages. That confidence was not misplaced. Commencing with the opening clarinet solo, these sections came through brilliantly.
The closing work, the richly orchestrated “Scheherazade” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov was even more demanding, with solo passages for almost all the instruments woven into and streaming through four long movements. Any orchestral weakness would be laid bare in such a work. But, if there was a single weak principal or section in this entire group of one hundred young students, this reviewer was unable to detect it.
Perhaps, the most surprising is the high quality of the French horn section which is generally the Achilles’ heel of even the most adult orchestras. But even among the excellent principal chairs, there were two who stood out. The Concertmaster Danny Suh carried the heavy burden of the principal theme that weaves through every movement and he did so with such an exquisite tone and facility that it appears he is not far from being ready for “prime time.”
The other is principal flutist Carolyn Nohejl, whose beautiful tone and powerful projection belied the traditional delicacy of that instrument. There were passages in which she simply soared gracefully above the orchestra.
Eylar, himself, is a highly trained musician and composer with an excellent baton technique, who is indisputably qualified to conduct almost any professional symphony orchestra. Yet, he appears to get great satisfaction in bringing out the best in his charges.
The soloist, violinist Lana Lee, the winner of the orchestra’s 2000 California Youth Symphony Young Artist Competition, might at age 18 be expected to show impetuous, showy flash in the beautifully melodic “Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor” by Max Bruch. Instead, she presented a thoughtful and mature reading that indicated she may be nearer to a successful professional concert career than her age suggests.
It is simply unarguable that with such technical mastery, beauty of tone, intonation, expression and dynamics, CYS is the benchmark for all the other orchestras on the Peninsula.
