(Nina Schumann & Daniel Boico)
Nina Schumann's performance was brilliant, the piano often melting effectively into the texture of the orchestra, while her beautifully played unaccompanied improvisatory-like solo sections won her a standing ovation from the audience. (Review by Barbara Trofimczyk)
The KZNPO's Four-concert Spring Season opened at the Playhouse Theatre on Thursday last week (October 6, 2022). The programme on this occasion was chronologically somewhat unusual, and the music in the two respective halves of the concert differed in almost every respect! The arrangement, it would seem, was for logistical reasons.
The two works in the first half of the concert, Kodaly's folk-inspired Dances of Galanta, and Gershwin's ever popular piano concerto Rhapsody in Blue, both virtuoso symphonic scores, required a greatly-augmented KZNPO and under the very able direction of Daniel Boico, the orchestra proved well-equipped for the challenge.
There was some fine playing in the woodwinds and brass (of special note the expressive solo clarinet in both works) while the strings, backed with prominent percussion, balanced well with the rest of the orchestra in the more animated passages.
The characteristic jazzy blues in the Gershwin was well-captured by both orchestra and soloist. Nina Schumann's performance was brilliant, the piano often melting effectively into the texture of the orchestra, while her beautifully played unaccompanied improvisatory-like solo sections won her a standing ovation from the audience.
After the interval, the rendering of excerpts from Handel's Judas Maccabeus by the combined Clermont Community and Zama High School choirs and soloists with conductors Msizi Brian Myandu and Daniel Boico sharing the podium, was polished and fully in style. The large choir was disciplined and beautifully balanced, and all the soloists did great justice to their respective solos and duets. They too earned a standing ovation. – Barbara Trofimczyk
The next concerts in the KZN Philharmonic’s
2022 Spring Season will take place on October 13, 20 and 27, 2022 in the Playhouse
Opera at 19h00. Season tickets, and bookings for individual concerts, are
available at Quicket outlets. For more information call 031-369 9438, email
bookings@kznphil.org.za or visit www.kznphil.org.za
To link directly to the orchestra’s
website, click on the advert on the top right-hand side of this article
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