Young Concert Artists

On it.

That's the ConEd slogan. It's an interesting slogan. It implies that the utility company is working at being better at providing us with their utilities. Well, my first observation when I saw one of their posters was, "if they were any good, they wouldn't have to be on anything."

Well, I'm on it. Which in turn means I'm no good at it. I'm working on a post that will catch you dear readers up with the last couple weeks of my life. In short, it's another one of my famous lists. But it's been rather slow-going, and I wanted to post quickly about a concert I went to last night before it also got relegated to "on it" status.

So last night, my friend Anna V. got free tickets from her architecture firm to go to a Young Concert Artists concert at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center in the Time Warner Building in Columbus Circle. She took me and Ellen along with her friend Pavel.

The theater is really cool because it goes all the way around the stage. It's uncool because it attracts stodgy rich people who, while are admirable for funding such affairs, totally suck because they give interminable back-patting speeches. It was interesting that seemingly no young people support young concert artists. It was full of geezers.

The first piece, Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto is an excellent composition with some fun twists. Jose Franch-Ballester's performance, while technically flawless (at least to my ear), was distracting from the rest of the piece. His skeevy jigs were unsettling so much so that I focused on the harp player for most of the performance. His cadenza was...ok.

Daxun Zhang did a Waxman arrangement of Bizet's Carmen on his double bass. His performance of the conventional piece was exciting. Bent over his instrument, Zhang played passionately. His was the most engaging performance of the evening.

For a finale, Lise de la Salle took on Franz Liszt's Concerto no. 1 in E-flat major, the "triangle" concerto. Her execution was masterful, but again, the performance was off. Her egotistic nods, overly easy trills, and one-handed runs down the keyboard were enough to make me forget she was only 19.

I would go again. I guess the fact that these 3 performers were all teenagers gave the show an interesting twist. It was also very fast-moving and kept my attention for the majority of the show. Good pick, Anna!

By the way, to those inquiring minds that want to know:

CADENZA - In a concerto, a brilliant, unaccompanied solo section, once improvised by the player, now more often already composed. It enlarges on the themes set forth in the work and exhibits the player's technique.

-dr-