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The Harriman-Jewell Series' Discovery Concerts at the Folly are intended to offer people of all ages the opportunity to attend free professional concerts. Judging by the size of the audience for the young violinist Rachel Lee, the Discovery Concerts are successful in their pursuit to attract a new group of classical concert-goers.

Lee, a student of Itzhak Perlman, already has an extremely impressive record of accomplishments at her young age. However, as every musician knows, there is always room for growth, regardless of age or experience. Lee's Kansas City debut on February 13 exhibited her already high level of playing ability and her potential.

The program may not have had an underlying connective theme, but including a classical sonata and an atonal 20^th century work at the same concert is certainly an admiral attempt in adventurous programming. Lee opened the concert with Beethoven's Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 10 in G Major, composed in 1812. While perhaps not Beethoven's most compelling violin sonata, No. 10 was still a good piece with which Lee could demonstrate her technical precision. After a slightly timid start, Lee quickly relaxed and the work's numerous arpeggios, trills, and lengthy slurred passages were expertly performed with only minimal intonation issues.

The rest of the concert featured works from the early 20^th century. Five Melodies for Violin and Piano, Op. 35 bis by Prokofiev followed Beethoven on the first half of the concert. Again, while not the most interesting Prokofiev violin piece, Lee continued to display more of her excellent command of melody and phrasing. Lee seamlessly switched between the work's wistful, playful and frenzied passages with only a rare imperfect harmonic and slightly embellished vibrato here and there.

The second half of the concert had a notably darker edge than the first, starting with Webern's Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7. Here Lee was able to show off her proficiency with atonality, dissonance, and dynamic control. A mere six minutes and almost all of them in the softest dynamic range, Four Pieces was the most mysterious and gripping work on the program.  The audience was completely silent, holding their breath in anticipation of what would come next in the music.

Lee finally exhibited some of the energy and emotion I had been waiting for all night with Enescu's Violin Sonata No. 3 in A Major. She fully embraced the Sonata's rhapsodic Gypsy-like melodies that included devices such as quarter-tone pitch bends, glissandos and the timbral bowing effects ponticello and sul tasto. Where Lee had an occasionally imperfect harmonic in the Prokofiev, she more than made up for in the all-harmonics opening of the second movement of Enescu's Sonata.

As an audience member, I felt disconnected from Lee until her first encore, Kreisler's Tambourin Chinois, the first memorized piece of the evening. Lee was not entirely buried in her sheet music the entire concert, but enough so that half the audience rarely saw her face while she played. Her young age perhaps allows her to get away with sheet music on stage, but her performance of Tambourin Chinois shows she is clearly capable of confident memorization and it resulted in a noticeable improvement in her stage presence and energy. With its lively pentatonic phrases and an emotive, legato middle section, Tambourin Chinois was a perfect choice for an encore.

For her second encore, Lee played Manuel de Falla's Cancion from Suite Populaire Espagnole.  The short, sweet and dance-like tune was played well, but it also was not memorized, and I found it somewhat of an afterthought, especially after her performance of Tambourin Chinois.

Pianist Michael Brown was a sensitive and attentive accompanist throughout the entire concert, playing accurately and expressively. Balance issues occurred only during the softer violin sections and were trivial compared to his otherwise excellent musical exchanges and flawless timing with Lee.

This Discovery Concert was a wonderful introduction to the classical concert experience. Because it was a new audience unfamiliar with concert etiquette, I believe they would have benefited from a section about etiquette written into the program as well as the recorded reminder played before the concert that attempts to eliminate distractions such as clapping between movements and cell phone ringing. Lee handled them with professionalism and poise. The Discovery Concerts are worth attending for any concert-goer interested in new artists. Rachel Lee is one such artist brimming with talent and potential and worth catching again in the future.

REVIEW:
Harriman-Jewell Series Discovery Concert
Rachel Lee, Violin
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Folly Theatre
12^th and Central Streets, Kansas City, MO
www.hjseries.org

By Kristin Shafel Omiccioli

Editorial Assignments Executive Editor; Traditional and New Classical Contributor

Kristin Shafel Omiccioli, a native of Madison, WI, holds composition degrees (M.M., B.M.) from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance. Kristin's compositions have been performed at national and regional new music festivals and conferences throughout the United States. During her time at UMKC, Kristin also focused on double bass performance and arts administration. She was a student leader and performer in many of the Conservatory's student organizations and ensembles, including Musica Nova, Composers' Guild, the Conservatory Student Association, the orchestras, and Wind Symphony. Her composition instructors were James Mobberley, Paul Rudy, Zhou Long, and Chen Yi, and her bass instructor was Sue Stubbs. Formerly a guitarist, Kristin performed with big bands and her own jazz combo in Madison, WI, having studied jazz guitar and theory with Roger Brotherhood in Madison and jazz voice and theory with Hal Melia in Kansas City at UMKC.

Kristin enjoys being active in the performing arts community. She has volunteered with the Chamber Music Society of Kansas City and Charlotte Street Foundation, and has played in the bass section of the Northland Symphony Orchestra, among other bass gigs around the metro. Kristin currently serves as principal bass for the Kansas City Civic Orchestra and Heritage Philharmonic, and is a section bassist for Kinnor Philharmonic. She joined the writing staff of KCMetropolis.org in February 2010 and has been KCM’s executive editor since July 2011. Read her blog at mylittleheartmelodies.com.