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The Utah Philharmonia is the largest orchestral ensemble of the University of Utah School\u00a0of Music. Its most recent concert, given at Libby Gardner Concert Hall in Salt Lake City\u00a0on February 11, presented the ensemble at one of its peaks. With an enthusiasm second to none, the School of Music\u2019s concerto competition winners augmented the vibrancy and professionalism of the orchestra in repertoire\u2014 four pieces\u2014that was and is charming, engaging, and tinged with a pinch of drama.<\/p>\n
Austrian composer Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-99) led off the evening\u2019s program with the richly scurrying overture to his operetta\u00a0\u201cDie Fledermaus<\/em>,\u201d one of his most popular pieces and one of the most frequently performed operettas. Claudia Restrepo was the graduate student conductor, and she led with a bracing start and a firm beat, eliciting string flourishes with an energetic sweep, along with a pulse of sustained vigor. Perhaps a little more flexibility at changes of tempo was warranted earlier on, but as the performance moved along these changes became smoother and more intuitive. This was a thoroughly enjoyable performance and interpretation, but one that was at times inconsistently inflected. The moment when the cellos are given the singing line was lovingly sustained, the chimes were struck evocatively, and the waltz section fizzed with appropriate finesse. At the close, the tempo became a little too inflexibly fast, and the dynamics of the final chord were brutally loud, but with textures still persuasively clear.<\/p>\n German virtuoso violinist and composer Ferdinand David (1810-73) became the concertmaster of the Gewandhaus (Orchestra) in Leipzig, Germany in 1835 and played under the great German composer Felix Mendelssohn; he also premiered Mendelssohn\u2019s E minor violin concerto in 1842. He composed approximately 40 pieces, none of which are really performed with any frequency. One that should be performed more often is his\u00a0Concertino<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>for Bassoon<\/em>, Op. 12, a captivating world of smoothly tumbling timbres and textures. Composed in 1839-40, it is a short, luxuriously tuneful and atmospheric work that hides some briefly deeper moments of introspection (its two movements last about 10 minutes).<\/p>\n Brent Mitchell Bodily was the bassoon soloist, and Bo Wu, another graduate student conductor, led the Utah Philharmonia in this performance. The textures at the start and in the first movement, an Andante<\/em>, were lucid, with the soloist presenting a nicely rounded and warm tone that was dusky and dark too. The pulse of the bassoon soloist and the orchestra was contoured discreetly, with the balances between soloist and orchestra warmly serene. Bodily\u2019s phrasing was flexible and rested on a bed of thoroughly sifted and shaped textures and colors courtesy of Bo Wu. The bassoon soloist\u2019s playing harnessed wonderfully lush low notes and tidy lyrical lines. The second movement, a Presto agitato<\/em>, had balances that were again pointedly maintained, with conductor Bo Wu wrapping the textures into and around the soloist lushly and playfully. The soloist\u2019s interplay with the three double basses was fastidiously capricious and joyfully understated. Wu\u2019s conducting never allowed the orchestra to loom over the soloist, gave a hint of glinting colors to the winds, and facilitated insouciant interplay between the strings and winds.<\/p>\n English-born composer Philip Lane (b. 1950) composed his\u00a0\u201cThree Spanish Dances\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>for solo oboe or clarinet and piano orchestra in 2001\u2014so this is almost a\u00a0contemporary piece of music. In three movements,\u00a0the composition\u00a0is a little longer in duration than the David\u00a0Concertino<\/em>, but the music evokes a similarly entrancing and intoxicating web of textures and colors, and is even more playful and carefree, even overtly sensual.<\/p>\n Matthew Mainella, yet another graduate student conductor, led the orchestra in an interpretation that was molded with care and spontaneity, one that was seconded by oboist Luca de la\u00a0Florin and his superbly enticing phrasing. The first movement is a\u00a0Malague\u00f1a<\/em>, with serpentine rhythms, and one that ends with a wash of textures and colors piling into a deep horizon. Florin\u2019s oboe line playfully and plangently projected into that of the harp. In the second movement, Habanera<\/em>, Florin adopted an enchantingly light pulse, especially when playing together with the horns. His high notes were most colorful, and meshed well with the\u00a0breadth given to the orchestral textures. The last movement is Tango<\/em>, and witnessed pointed rhythms that merged with the sway and ripple of the\u00a0textures. Luca de la Florin\u2019s playing, with its diverting and cascading phrasing, enchanted itself and the orchestra. His attire added to the mood of the dances: he wore a plum-colored jacket with jet black pants and black sneakers with white laces.<\/p>\n French composer Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957) compiled, arranged and orchestrated the\u00a0\u201cChants d\u2019Auvergne<\/em>\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Songs from the Auvergne) from\u00a01923-24 to\u00a01930-55 in the local language, Occitan. This work for soprano and orchestra or piano, which is composed of folksongs from the region Canteloube,\u00a0is his best-known and most-performed and recorded work. Soprano Shana Osterloh sung only five songs\u2013those of the first series\u2014from this much longer work (in five series, of five-eight songs each). Robert Baldwin, Director of Orchestral Activities at the University of Utah School of Music, led the Philharmonia resolutely, and easily obtained a directly lucid sound.<\/p>\n In\u201cLa pastoura als camps<\/em>,\u201d the first song of the first series, Osterloh was sweetly evocative and playful, with sensuously daring phrasing and balances. So she caught the \u201cShepherdess in the Fields\u201d with a dewy dazzle. In \u201cBa\u00efl\u00e8ro,<\/em>\u201d deep splashes and inundations of creamy clarity and warmth lit the hall, and as the song progressed\u00a0Osterloh\u2019s voice\u00a0became more embedded in the sparkling dance of textures. She maintained passion, precision and color at both loud and soft volumes, with some expansion to an attractive, timely spraying of a lighter vibrato. There was an exquisite balance among strings, piano, and vocalist. Maestro Baldwin played no small role in this.<\/p>\n \u201cTrois bourr\u00e9es<\/em>\u201d includes three songs. \u201cL\u2019aio de rotso<\/em>\u201d had a tangy clarinet moment, and Osterloh led with slinky drama and\u00a0velvet in her soprano voice, its sinuous play with the winds and brasses teasing the textures deliciously. So \u201cSpring Water\u201d found its own rivulets. \u201cOund\u2019onoren gorda\u00a0?<\/em>\u201d was attentive and perky, but at times lacked the last ounce of warmth. So \u201cWhere Shall we Go\u201d slithered into its brusque bursts of tantalizing colors with just enough abandon. \u201cObal, din lou Limouzi<\/em>\u201d included another brief\u00a0clarinet\u00a0line that had a rugged grace to its tone and phrasing. Shana Osterloh matched and melded this to her\u00a0own whims. So \u201cOver in Limousin\u201d truly felt like a sketch of a\u00a0town\u00a0free to dance to its own strands of frothy joy. In some of the most striking concert attire I have seen in some time, Osterloh wore a long creamy dark scarlet dress, with lace arms. Superb.<\/p>\n This was a thoroughly invigorating concert that exhibited the vibrantly varied programming that has almost become\u00a0commonplace for Utah Philharmonia concerts. Those who are allergic to endless performances of the \u201cgreatest hits\u201d of the standard orchestral repertoire should seek to attend one of its\u00a0concerts\u2014they are likely to depart with a sense of adventure replenished\u2014like little wells, each with its own bucket.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Utah Philharmonia is the largest orchestral ensemble of the University of Utah School\u00a0of Music. Its most recent concert, given at Libby Gardner Concert Hall in Salt Lake City\u00a0on February 11, presented the ensemble at one of its peaks. With an enthusiasm second to none, the School of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1519,"featured_media":32445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,58],"tags":[3737,3736,3735,3738,3734],"class_list":["post-32443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bytes","category-music","tag-bo-wu","tag-brent-mitchell-bodily","tag-libby-gardner-concert-hall","tag-matthew-mainella","tag-the-utah-philharmonia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/150-sept-9-17-utah-ph.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-27 21:30:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32443"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32469,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32443\/revisions\/32469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}