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The annual Concerto/Aria competitions are a rite of passage for college performers.  Participants have to walk that delicate balance of “flash and trash” pieces with ones that showcase their musicianship and find those pieces that will make it through multiple rounds of auditions in front of multiple judges.  The three winners of UMKC’s Concerto/Aria competition, baritone Chris Carr, pianist Victoria Fatu, and cellist Yifan Wu, all won with Russian works which provided the audience an enjoyable insight into the microcosm of Russian feature works.

The UMKC Conservatory Orchestra opened with Mendelssohn’s Overture to the Hebrides “Fingal’s Cave” under the direction of Steve Lewis.  Recovering from a rocky start, the piece locked in after the first couple of bars.  The too-small violin section was overmatched on the first climax, but Lewis tempered the sound on the subsequent ones and the balance became better.  The articulations in the winds were evenly matched across the ensemble.

Moving on to the Concerto/Aria portion of the evening, baritone Chris Carr sang “Ya vas lyublyu” from Tchaikovsky’s opera Pikovaya dama under the direction of Robert Olson. Carr commanded the stage with controlled tone across his registers and excellent phrasing.  Even though I’m no expert in Russian diction, it was clear that this was a love song.  I look forward to hearing Carr onstage at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City next year, where he will be the baritone Lyric Opera Artist Apprentice for the 2011–12 season.  The orchestral playing was sensitive and Carr had no trouble projecting.  The introduction to the aria ended with revelatory trio between Rena Vacha, English horn, Sean Donovan, horn, and Alice Huang, cello.  It was partly Tchaikovsky’s fine transparent writing but these three musicians made the moment magical while not distracting from Carr’s spotlight.

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major was Russian-born Victoria Fatu’s vehicle.  With conductor Shao Zhang, Fatu captured and nailed all of Prokofiev’s trademarks in the too-short piece: humor, toccata-style, lyricism, virtuosity, well-crafted form, and surprising harmonies. With her Michelle-DeYoung-by-way-of-Bernadette-Peters crimson mane bouncing along in time, Fatu clearly enjoyed performing. Certain passages were tackled with almost an almost child-like joie-de-vivre.  Her exuberant keyboard antics supported the music however, achieving that rare balance of show-off and musicianship. Shao Zhang handled the orchestra well, navigating them adroitly through the sections; the only let down was some murky strings before the final reprise of the main theme and perhaps too much time was taken between sections.

Yifan Wu, a senior, was the youngest of the winners. He played the first movement of Shostakovich’s incessant Cello Concerto No. 1.  With the omnipresent D-S-C-H motive, this concerto is aggressive and devilish.  I had some doubts in the opening moments as Wu did not maintain the intensity required of the sustained pitches but as soon as he began the double stops he was in control, in the moment, and never backed away. I heard Ruslan Biruykov perform the same work last year and enjoy Wu’s performance much more.  Wu’s performance coupled rawness and grit with great tone and steady bow-work. The spiky orchestral parts were charmingly demented even with a few botched notes in the equally frenzied solo horn part.

Complimenting the intensity of Shostakovich’s Concerto was the world premiere of Ryan Jesperson’s I.Jest.  Much like the Shostakovich had unremitting motives, Jesperson frequently returned to the same sound-objects.  The orchestra performed the new work well, but I wished the piece had had more forward motion and that the string writing was less murky.  The sighing gestures were particularly effective and the brass writing was like a neo/quasi-jazz, third-degree sunburn. I mean that in the best possible way; I love brash brass and Jesperson delivered on that account.

Concluding the evening of soloists was Ravel’s Boléro.  It is a difficult piece for student ensembles to handle because of the parity needed across the entire ensemble.  Some of the soloists rose to the occasion and others nervously flubbed.  Among the best: Hannah Porter’s pianissimo flute solo that still managed to be remarkably hall-filling; Amanda Hudnall’s even tone throughout the E-flat clarinet solo; Dieter Koch managed to make the oboe d’amore sound like an everyday orchestra instrument instead of the oddity that it is; and Nick Andrews’ sultry tenor saxophone solo was colored with just the right amount of vibrato.  The finest ensemble moment occurred in the iteration played by a trio consisting of Koch, Vacha (now on oboe), and Gabrielle Baffoni on clarinet.  Their tones blended effortlessly creating a new mercury-colored, liquid-like sound.

The middle portions of the concert, the soloists, were definitely the highlight of the evening. I was disappointed with the programming of opening and closing numbers, With three Russian pieces winning, why not go full tilt and do an all-Russian program? Mussorgky’s Prelude to Khovanshchina or Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia would have worked just as well and been as appropriate as Fingal’s Cave. Closing with Boléro made sense because of the numerous solos across the ensemble and this is a “soloist’s” concert but since the Kansas City Symphony just did it a few concerts ago why not keep with the Russians and rip through Mussorgsky’s searing Night on Bald Mountain or blow the roof off with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Festival?  All of these pieces are standard rep and befit an orchestral educational program.

REVIEW:
University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance
Concerto/Aria 2011 Winners Concert
Friday, February 25, 2011
James C. Olson Performing Arts Center
White Recital Hall
4949 Cherry, Kansas City, MO
For more information call 816-235-2799 or visit http://conservatory.umkc.edu

Top Photo:  Victoria Fatu (Photo by Christian Fatu of Fatu Photography)

By Lee Hartman

Editor-in-Chief; Traditional and New Classical Contributor

Lee Hartman holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (D.M.A., M.M.) and the University of Delaware (B.M.). At the University of Delaware, he received a Dean's Scholar position enabling him to pursue an individually designed academic program combining music education and composition. At the University of Missouri-Kansas City he served for three years as the Assistant Director to Musica Nova, the conservatory's new music ensemble, while teaching a variety of composition classes.

In 2007 he was invited to both the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavík, Iceland and the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China to give lectures and master classes in composition. In the summer of 2009, Hartman served as an orchestra manager for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Aspen Opera Theater Center for various performances. He serves on the National Executive Committee of the Society of Composers, Inc. as Submissions Coordinator. His primary composition instructors include James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Paul Rudy, John Beall, and Jennifer Margaret Barker. He currently teaches music theory at the University of Central Missouri and general music classes at Park University having previously taught at UD (2007–08) and UMKC (2006–07).

His compositions can be found at http://www.leehartmanmusic.com