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Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra’s ‘Made in America’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CONCERT REVIEW Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra’s Spring Concert. Sunday in Symphony Hall. www.atlantasymphony.org.
“Made in America,” a new work from a prominent New York composer — given its Georgia premiere — took top billing, but the unquestioned highlight of Sunday afternoon’s Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra concert came at the end.
Donald Runnicles, the ASO’s principal guest conductor and a regular visitor to leading orchestras around the world, led the ASYO in Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” a painting-by-painting tour of an art gallery, originally written as a piano piece and here orchestrated by Ravel into a riot of color and high drama.
In several of the seductive, softer tableaux — “The Old Castle” and “The Rich and Poor Jews” — Runnicles had the kids sounding like the Vienna Philharmonic, plush in tone, with Central European gravitas. He pushed the volume and contrast in the big and brawny sections to outrageous extremes, so “The Hut on Fowl’s Legs” crackled with exuberance. The 120 young musicians, aged 13 to high school, rewarded their conductor with the raw joy of making music.
The Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra seems like a perfect world in microcosm. Unlike its parent organization — the professional ASO — the 120-member youth ensemble is diverse in race, ethnicity, gender and probably most other demographic measures. The talent level is perennially high: many youth orchestra graduates have gone on to serious careers in music, including four current ASO musicians. (And this year, the parents’ association kicked in $4 million toward college scholarships.)
The afternoon’s first half explored new and old Americana. Along with Copland’s “Billy the Kid” ballet suite, ASYO music director Jere Flint conducted Joan Tower’s “Made in America.” Premiered in October in upstate New York, this 15-minute score was commissioned by a 50-state consortium of small-budget and youth orchestras, with significant corporate funding. Flint and the ASYO gave an exacting performance of “Made in America” — on the same day as ensembles in Missouri and Montana.
And the music? Now in her late 60s, Tower’s sound-world is approachable and sincere, with an academic attention to craft: She always colors predictably within the lines. The composer based her latest score on “America the Beautiful.” Although we sometimes hear the familiar tune straight, it’s more often cloaked, expanded or riffed upon by the full orchestra. Overall, the music isn’t especially compelling or memorable — an ironic outcome for music that strives for wide cultural relevance.
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