Two good concerts

Friday night the University of Colorado Symphony Orchestra, lead by Gary Lewis, offered its first concert for the semester. There were three works on the program, all of which tested this young orchestra and all of which were performed very well. The control and evenness of the strings impressed me. I particularly liked Daniel Kellogg's "Western Skies", musical ruminations on the Colorado landscape. Last year at one of the Pendulum Series programs (I think) another Colorado-inspired Kellogg piece was premiered and I liked it too. This was not a premiere for "Western Skies", as it been played by the National Symphony Orchestra in places as far away as Japan and Korea. It is a full orchestra, fairly loud reflection on the openness of the plains, the crystalline clearness of snowy night and the dramatic jump into the mountains. How big a jump? The lowest point in Boulder County is 4890 feet above sea level, the highest 14,255 at the top of Long's Peak. That is a 9365 feet difference in one county, 1.8 miles! Kellogg is from back east (Yale) where the horizon is always muffled by trees and more trees, so his music reflects his agoraphobic reaction to all this open space. "Western Skies" would sound wonderful if it were performed in the thundering wooden shed of Boulder's Chauttauqua Auditorium with Michael Christie leading the Colorado Music Festival.

The second half of the concert was Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony", enthusiastically played. Lewis was so energetic in his conducting that he poked his baton into the principal cellist's instrument and dropped it from the stage.

The other night a new vocal faculty member at Colorado, soprano Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson, made her local debut as part of the Faculty Tuesdays. What a stunning opening! All her selections were female roles "Speaking Her Mind". Particularly striking were two excerpts from Gounod's "Faust" where first an impressionable Marguerite sings of her beauty into a mirror, and then later pregnant bemoans her abandonment. Bird's voice was wonderful and her facial expressions outstanding. As she got into Frau Fluth's character she shot a glance at the pianist Christopher Zemliauskas that told the audience who was in control. Once again the University of Colorado as snared another terrific singer.