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Signature Symphony with Anne-Marie McDermott
Published: 4/11/2008 1:20 PM
Last Modified: 4/11/2008 1:20 PM

The Signature Symphony at Tulsa Community College concluded its 29th season with its last Williams Signature Classics concert Thursday night at the VanTrease Performing Arts Center for Education.

This was also the first Signature Symphony concert I've attended since December of last year (the reasons for this gap are not something I can address in this space or time). Suffice it to say, things haven't changed a great deal with this orchestra.

I have attended concerts by this ensemble that were very, very good. I have witnessed some performances that were not easy to endure. And too often, I've heard this orchestra demonstrate both extremes in the course of an evening.

Thursday night's concert was one of those latter events.

The good stuff was quite honestly good. Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story had the right mix of brio and sensitivity, the orchestra's playing was sharply focused, and conductor Barry Epperley guided them through the shifting rhythms, the raucous shouts and the tender whispers of the various sections with a sure hand.

Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott gave an inspiring performance of the Piano Concerto in G by Ravel, a work that gorgeously blends American jazz (Ravel was doing an obvious homage to George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the first movement of this work) and French melodicism.

There's whiffs of blues, jazz, even good old barrelhouse piano in the opening, an almost unending outpouring of sound that McDermott went at with characteristic intensity. She made this music vibrate with life, just as her playing in the slow second movement -- one of those beautifully melancholy melodies at which Ravel excelled -- created a most poignant atmosphere, in which McDermott was ably abetted by sensitive solo playing by flutist Dana Higbee and English hornist Sarah Evans.

The orchestra opened the evening with a demonstration of its commitment to music education, by having 70 young string players -- representing was Epperley described as the 800 students orchestra members work with each week as part of its "Higher Scale" program with Tulsa Public Schools -- play through "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Boil 'Em Cabbage Down."

The first two pieces the orchestra played, however, sounded as if slapped together at the last minute. Larry Dalton's "Fanfare for the PACE" is all brass and percussion, yet these two ensembles never quite worked together in the way one would expect. The timing seemed off throughout this brief piece -- odd hesitations that made it sound ragged.

This was only magnified in the Divertimento for Orchestra by Bernstein. Written as a in-jokey valentine to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Divertimento is a grab-bag of musical styles -- from dances to serialism to blues --that was designed both to challenge and joke with BSO musicians.

The Signature Symphony's performance was problematic. Stephen Goforth's trumpet solo in the "Blues" section and Higbee's flute solo at the start of "In Memoriam and March," were excellently played, and the energetic "Samba" was fine.

But for the most this Divertimento lurched along like some inebriated fellow determined to walk home, no matter how much the ground seemed to roll beneath his feet. The lack of cohesion in the "Waltz," "Mazurka" and "Turkey Trot" segments turned these dances into embarrassing stumbles.

That the Signature Symphony has been a viable artistic entity in this city for three decades is a remarkable achievement, and one that deserves to be celebrated. The orchestra has come a long way, it is filled with talented musicians, and has shown glimpses of how good it can be.

Maybe the wish that should be made, as the Signature Symphony prepares for its 30th anniversary next season, is that the orchestra commits to making those glimpses last for an entire evening's performance.


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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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