(Adé
Williams)
Uplifting experience for first concert of
the winter season. (Review by Michael Green)
The emphasis was on youth at the first
concert, in the Durban City Hall, of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra’s Winter
Season.
The soloist was a 16-year-old playing a
Mozart violin concerto written when the composer was 19. The conductor was a
35-year-old American. In the orchestra were 13 players from Bloemfontein who
were all under the age of 18. Even the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, who
sometimes seemed (to quote Oscar Wilde) to have the gift of perpetual old age,
was only 36 when he wrote the symphony performed at the concert.
The solo violinist was Adé Williams from
the United States. At the age of 16 she has built up an impressive record of
public appearances, and she showed high skills in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.
4 in D major. She has a quite flamboyant style of playing. Her technical
abilities are obvious, and in her youthful way she captured the joyous spirit
of this lovely work. “Like a breath of
fresh air”, somebody said to me.
The conductor, Jayce Ogren, a newcomer
here, was born in Washington and he too has a fine record of concert
achievement at a young age. He has a dynamic conducting style, with an apparent
inclination toward brisk tempi, and under his baton the orchestra contributed
greatly to the success of the Mozart concerto.
The visiting players in the orchestra were
members of the Bochabela String Orchestra, established by an American, Peter
Guy, to help under-privileged children in the Free State.
Their presence boosted the number of string
players in the KZNPO to about 50. The massive string tone played an important
part in a triumphant performance of Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 in D major, and
in the same composer’s Finlandia,
which opened the concert.
The symphony is big in every sense, and the
conductor and players extracted full value from its power and strength. At the
end the audience gave prolonged applause for what had been an uplifting
experience. - Michael Green
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