Reviews

GSA Holiday Program
December 14, 2021
Larchmont United Methodist Church
Review by John Campbell

Vocal Music Chair Shelly Milam Ratliff gave the welcome for this program of seasonal favorite choral and instrumental music performed by the select group of high school students with a sold out masked audience. We had front row seats in the balcony. A few rows behind us the male students (Anthony Bassett, Banks Boney, Jadon Colbert, Tallon Cummings-Watson, LaVonte Evans, Jarius Hines, Devin White, LeSean Rawls, Ted C.J. Thomas) sang a lovely Jubilate Deo by Michael Pretorius (1571-1621) followed by beautiful vocal blends in O Magnum Mysterium set by Evan Ramos (b. 1983). They concluded this opening set with In the Bleak Midwinter by Gustav Holst (1874-1934), arranged by Vocal Music Department instructor Suzanne Daniel. The text solo was passed from one student to the next, keeping our attention focused.

Our attention then shifted to the chancel where the GSA Baroque Orchestra of seventeen students and Dr. Stephen Coxe, who conducted from the harpsichord, played Arcangelo Corelli's (1653-1713) Concerto Grosso in G Minor, “Christmas Concerto”, Op. 6, No., 8. The work is Corelli's best known piece and in it he expanded the usual four movements to six. In the first, Allegro, movement violins suddenly break out with a rapid, ruffled sixteenth note oscillation. Throughout there are many changes of tempo and staggered imitative suspensions. The second movement begins with gentle sweet music which accelerates and concludes with a lush, beautiful melody. The fourth movement, Vivace, is very fast and very short. After a long Allegro fifth movement, the work concludes with the lovely, serene Largo Pastorale sixth.

The remainder of this well constructed season opening program concluded with Benjamin Britten's (1931-1976) Ceremony of Carols with thirty singers accompanied by harpist Alexandra Mullins with Coxe conducting. Much excitement built as the singers entered the sanctuary from the narthex and progressed down the outside aisles singing the Processional opening, Hodie Christus natus est (Today Christ is born) to the chancel where they joined the harpist.

This was followed by the excitement of a hearty Wolcom Yole! (Welcome Yule) accompanied by plucked strident chords on harp. The well-trained, youthful voices in hushed and reverent tones sang There is no rose accompanied by the hauntingly beautiful melody on harp. As the fading repeats died away to silence we heard Isabella Rosario sing That Yongë Child, a lullaby of great tenderness. The harp opened Balulalow and Logan Windley's pure soprano voice sang of opening her heart as a cradle for the babe as the choral sound built to a grand intensity.

The vivacious energy of the chorus in As Dew in Aprille had the voices creating layers of sound as if echoes were bounding around inside a cathedral, all frantically urged on by the harp. In This Little Babe the sound builds mightily into an echo effect that is most exciting, only to end in unison. The solo harp Interlude was full of longing that hearkened back to the plainsong of the opening piece. In Freezing Winter Night followed with its ‘shivering canonic dissonances’ that created a mood of despair and vulnerability. Supported musically by the chorus, the closing lines were sung by Isabella Gayton and Mary Reins: “With joy approach…do homage to thy King.” Unsettling harmonies created an emotional edge and some amazing low notes.

Deo Gracias followed a sweet, gentle Spring Carol that featured Sophia Stopyra and Madison Poole. There is great drama in the echo effect of Deo Gracias (Thanks to God) over the harp’s bursting glissandi. Having completed their cosmic message, they sang Hodie (Today Christ is born), as they processed out, leaving us with a sense of well-being and awe at the beauty we had just experienced.

This live, indoor concert was wonderful for both students and audience after the Bank Street tent or virtual only programs of the last year.

VSO Side-by-Side with GSA
March 10, 2022, Sandler Center, Virginia Beach
Review by John Campbell

The first joint performance of the Governor's School for the Arts Orchestra with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra since Eric Jacobsen became VSO music director was Dmitry Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47. Guest Conductor Benjamin Rous, who concluded his eight-year tenure as resident VSO conductor in 2018, led this side-by-side performance at Sandler Center for the Performing Arts.

Yes, there was enough music in this symphony for an entire evening. With the roughly 120 member combined orchestra the powerful opening sound was exciting. The somber doom-laden theme in the eighteen-minute first movement soon passes but the sense of unease it creates persists. The second theme alludes to a phrase from the Habanera in Bizet's Carmen where the violas are heard over a strong, rhythmic pulse in the cellos and basses. Then we hear a forceful entrance by the horns that leads to fragments of the original melody. It was lyrical for a while, only to climax in a grotesque Mahlerian march. There is a brief pause as if the movement is over but it grinds its way back to the opening material, achieving stillness but not serenity.

The second movement is lighter in texture, a scherzo that sounds like a waltz in Shostakovitch's satirical style. Of the two waltz melodies, one is played by cellos and double basses, the other is in the woodwinds. This slow, third (Largo) movement is one of the composer's most richly evocative, emotionally profound and troubled. First we get a doleful, extended, chamber-like song in lyrical violins and then an elegiac melody in oboe over tremolo strings as the sound grows and develops. The fleet tempo now sounds more urgent in the orchestra, but quietly it grows in sound with melody on the harp doubled by celeste (think Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy). At its searing climax the piano and xylophone speak, backed by high strings with overwhelming energy before it all fades away.

In movement four, Allegro non troppo (quick but not too quick) the music is march-like with brass over tympani rhythms. Themes from earlier movements are used midway. The march melody returns to bring the symphony to a powerful conclusion. It is a big, Hollywood style ending with screaming strings as if it's all falling apart but it rights itself with slowing drum strikes and then is over.

A listener at its 1937 premiere during the mass terror in the U.S.S.R. said: “This is not music; this is high-voltage, nervous electricity.” The enhanced orchestra led by Benjamin Rous gave a brilliant performance.

GSA Chamber Music Concert
Vivaldi's The Four Seasons
Susan S. Good Fine and Performing Arts Center
Virginia Wesleyan University, April 28, 2022
Review by John Campbell

The headline performance was The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) but the first half of the program offered smaller groups of chamber players. All but two student performers had been part of the side-by-side with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra on March 10, 2022 of Shostakovitch's Symphony No. 5, reviewed here recently.

The opener was from Felix Mendelssohn's String Quartet in D Major, Op. 44 (1838). Jack Hamerly, violin and Elias Shapero, cello with faculty members Amanda Gates, violin and Anastasia Migliozzi, viola played the third movement Andante expressivo ma con moto. The expressive walking rhythm had the same speed throughout. This well-played performance shows that experience like this builds confidence in students as they develop their skills.

The second set was the first movement Allegro from Vivaldi's Concerto in D, Op. 3, No. 6 RV250 (1711) and was introduced by Ms. Gates with the students billed as "Octolins and Friends." The playing was bright and lively. Vivaldi's set of twelve concertos in this Opus 3 lived up to its title L'estro armonico (Harmonic inspiration) and was important in the history of the development of the concerto form. Here we had seven violins, played by Sasch Burhop, Zoe Leo, Colin McGlynn, Jordan Tesoro, Jordan Parker, Pierce Wynne, and Ms. Gates; two violas, Jocelyn Scully and Arwyn Dick; two cellos, Elias Shapero and Charlotte Wilson; and one bass, Noah Lawson.

Next came the first movement of Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904) “American” String Quartet, Op. 96. Our players were Pierce Wynne, Evelyn Page, violin; Jocelyn Scully, viola and Caitlin Webster, cello. The sweet, warm American tune wove a sophisticated tapestry of sound. A darker tune developed later, and seemed to dig into greater complexity in the homespun variations. The opening theme returned, only to conclude in a grand ending.

The GSA Cello Choir dazzled us with two pieces, starting with Samuel Barber (1910-1981), his Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 (Arr. David Johnstone). Barber's slow movement for string quartet is built on a single melodic idea, offering a sense of serenity that is treated as a canon before it moves to a compelling grand climax, followed by a return to the emotionally evocative opening theme to end quietly.

By contrast, Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla's (1921-1992) Libertango (1974) (Arr. Nick Halsey) offers us fire. The grittier and more intimate sound has a fast, busy opening that moves into a pure tango with a compact dynamic that is totally engaging emotionally. It is surprising that this popular piece has entered the classical repertory fairly recently and only after Piazzolla's death. The cellists were Davis Mann, Kevin Nguyen, Caitlin Webster and Eddie Rickenbacker who returned for the Vivaldi that followed intermission and here were joined by Arielle Howard and Elias Shapero and Charlotte Wilson.

After intermission we heard Antonio Vivaldi's Le quattro stagioni, (The Four Seasons) Op 8 (1719). The program notes included Vivaldi's own Italian sonnets in a 2019 English translation by Armand D'Angour, featuring each season, beginning with Spring (La Primavera). The orchestra of seventeen players was led by harpsichordist Stephen Coxe from the keyboard. The descriptive imagery in the poems shows up in the musical fabric—birds, a thunderstorm and again birdsong celebrating the warm happiness of shepherds dancing to rustic bagpipes. Featured violin soloists were Stella Feliberti with Kathleen Grover and Nathan Jones.

L'Estate (Summer) offers the heat of the sun and the voice of the cuckoo, turtledove and finch. A fierce thunderstorm with hail was depicted by violin soloist Summer Littles. L'autunno (Autumn) offered a folksy harvest celebration and the galloping of a hunting party on horseback. Blake Armstrong was soloist. The stunning bleakness of icy L'inverno (Winter) had soloist Khalil Turner expressing cold, quiet intensity to begin and a sizzling close that described the cozy fire after the cold is locked out. The orchestra with soloists gave us a full experience of Vivaldi's pictorial ingenuity as they played their hearts out. It was an vivid experience in the intimate space of the Brock Theatre.