REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Rachmaninoff & Rhapsody in Blue"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

June 6-8, 2025

by Michael J. Moran

The HSO and its Music Director Carolyn Kuan closed their 2024-2025 “Masterworks” series of weekend concerts in festive style, including a powerful closing appearance by pianist Clayton Stephenson. The program comprised three works - written in the U.S. over an 80-year period by two American-born composers and a Russian immigrant - which were all distinctively American.

Photo by Jim Henkel

After a helpful spoken introduction and brief excerpts played by different HSO members, Kuan led the orchestra in a dramatic account of John Adams’ “Dr. Atomic Symphony.” This was adapted in 2007 from music in his 2005 opera “Doctor Atomic,” which portrayed the moral ambivalence of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and his Manhattan Project colleagues in creating and testing the atomic bomb in the 1940's. The symphony’s three continuous movements featured many instrumental solos, but none more eloquent than the plaintive trumpet of HSO principal trumpet Dovas Lietuvninkas, expressing Oppenheimer’s anguish. 

Stephenson was next; a dazzling soloist in George Gershwin’s 1924 “Rhapsody in Blue" to show how jazz could enrich classical music. With technical polish and emotional exuberance to spare, the Juilliard-educated Stephenson shifted seamlessly between the piece’s contrasting moods, from quiet blues to joyous outbursts. Kuan and the ensemble were proficient partners, with a sinuous opening solo by HSO principal clarinet Sangwon Lee.

Stephenson’s perky encore performance of Igor Stravinsky’s 1921 arrangement for solo piano of the “Russian Dance” from his 1911 ballet “Petrushka” was equally virtuosic and invigorating.

Photo by Jim Henkel

The concert ended with a vibrant rendition of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s three “Symphonic Dances,” his last work for orchestra. Written in 1940 at his summer home on Long Island, its jagged rhythms and percussive instrumentation reflected both the influence of the composer’s native Russia and his growing Americanization over two decades spent in the U.S. The first movement featured an alto saxophone solo, sensuously played by Carrie Koffman, while the finale quoted an ancient Russian liturgical hymn of joy in its lively climax; a curious but memorable epitaph.

Next up for the HSO are a free concert in Bushnell Park on June 14 and their five-concert summer Talcott Mountain Music Festival in Simsbury (June 27-July 25).

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Tchaikovsky & Bonds"

The Bushnell, Belding Theater, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

December 13-15, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

For the fourth weekend of their 2024-2025 “Masterworks” series, HSO offered impressive debuts by Windsor-born guest conductor Jonathan Taylor Rush and HSO 2024-2025 Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence, and pianist Clayton Stephenson. Rush took the stage to warm applause, responding, “I feel like I’m home,” and engagingly introducing the opening work on the program: three of the seven movements in Margaret Bonds’ “Montgomery Variations.”

Bonds, a leading African-American female composer, wrote these “freestyle variations” on the Negro Spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me” in 1963-1965 to depict several key events in the US Civil Rights Movement. Rush and the HSO brought incisive vigor to “Decision,” stirring conviction to the “March,” and tender compassion to “Benediction”.     

Stephenson was next a sensational soloist in Tchaikovsky’s popular 1874/75 first piano concerto. A New York City native trained from childhood at the Juilliard School there, he launched into the famous opening “Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso” with commanding technical bravura. He played softer passages with equal sensitivity. His clarity of touch highlighted both the playfulness of the piano’s many dialogues with other instruments and its power in solo cadenzas. Rush and the orchestra were animated partners in a dramatic opening movement, a radiant “Andante semplice,” and an explosive “Allegro con fuoco” finale. 

In total contrast, Stephenson’s encore, Vincent Youmans’ 1924 hit, “Tea for Two,” showcased the pianist’s formidable jazz chops, with its easy swing tempo and elaborate improvised embellishments.

The program closed with an electrifying version of Tchaikovsky’s much less familiar 1875 3rd symphony. After experiencing its five movements – a haunting “Introduzione” and vibrant “Allegro,” a graceful waltz-like “Alla tedesca,” a luminous “Andante elegiac,” a fleet “Scherzo,” and a majestic “Polonaise” finale– as carefully shaped by Rush and cogently performed by the HSO, listeners in Belding Theater could only wonder why this colorful showpiece isn’t heard more often.

The rapturous audience reception of the charismatic Rush, former Associate Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, suggested that return visits would be welcome.

The next Masterworks program (February 14-16) will feature HSO Music Director Carolyn Kuan and violinist Sirena Huang in music by Dawson, Strauss, and Sibelius.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Brahms’ First"

The Bushnell, Belding Theater, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

November 15-17, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

While the third weekend of the HSO’s 2024-2025 “Masterworks” series included only two pieces, both are beloved cornerstones of the standard classical repertoire, and the Belding Theater audience was accordingly large and appreciative.

Inbal Segev

HSO Music Director Carolyn Kuan opened the program with Sir Edward Elgar’s 1919 cello concerto, featuring internationally acclaimed Israeli-born cellist Inbal Segev. Reflecting the English master’s sorrow over the devastation of World War I and the mortal illness of his cherished wife, the concerto was Elgar’s last major work. Segev’s tone was aptly rich and mellow in her opening soliloquy. This was followed by a glowing “Adagio; Moderato,” a light, playful “Lento; Allegro molto,” an elegiac “Adagio,” and a restless “Allegro; Moderato; Allegro, ma non troppo,” including a final, heart-piercing cello soliloquy. Segev’s playing was deeply emotional and technically secure, with Kuan and the HSO offering full-blooded support.

In sharp contrast, Segev’s encore was a joyous account of the closing “Gigue,” a lively Baroque dance, from Johann Sebastian Bach’s 1723 third suite for solo cello, which highlighted her fleet and flawless finger work.

The program ended with Johannes Brahms’ 1876 first symphony. After he was publicly hailed at age 20 by his mentor Robert Schumann as “the savior of German music,” it took Brahms over twenty more years of off and on work to publish his first attempt at the form so highly developed by Beethoven. But his first symphony was an immediate success, one critic even calling it “Beethoven’s Tenth.”

Kuan and the HSO delivered a stirring performance, masterfully shaping the distinctive character of each movement into a dramatic whole, with perfectly judged tempos throughout. The opening “Un poco sostenuto; Allegro” started forcefully and continued with power and warmth. The “Andante sostenuto” was gentle and reflective. The “Un poco allegretto e grazioso” was lithe yet relaxed. The closing “Adagio; Piu andante; Allegro non troppo, ma con brio” was first suspenseful, then majestic, and finally, jubilant. The standing ovation was long, loud, and well earned.

  

The HSO’s next Masterworks program (December 13-15) will feature guest conductor Jonathan Rush and the HSO debut of 2024-2025 Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence, pianist Clayton Stephenson, in music by Margaret Bonds and Tchaikovsky.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Prokofiev"

The Bushnell, Belding Theater, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

September 27-29, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

For the first weekend of their 2024-2025 “Masterworks” series, the HSO’s Music Director, Carolyn Kuan, followed an HSO premiere of a Romantic showpiece honoring two orchestra members with a double helping of favorite masterpieces by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.

After a stirring traditional season-opening national anthem, HSO Concertmaster Leonid Sigal and Assistant Principal Second Violinist Jaroslaw Lis soloed in Spanish violinist-composer Pablo de Sarasate’s 1889 “Navarra” for two violins and orchestra. Celebrating their 20th and 30th HSO anniversaries respectively, they traded the virtuosic runs and sweet harmonies of this lively folk-based waltz with the polish and flair of longtime colleagues, warmly supported by Kuan and the ensemble.   

Sigal introduced their encore – the “Allegro” second movement of Prokofiev’s 1932 sonata for two violins – as a bridge between the bulls of Sarasate’s native Pamplona and Prokofiev’s wolf. The two soloists met the technical challenges of this brief, astringent workout with aplomb.

Next came Prokofiev’s most popular work, “Peter and the Wolf,” which he subtitled “symphonic tale for children, for narrator and orchestra.” Written in 1936 for the Moscow Children’s Theatre, it uses different instruments of the orchestra to depict characters (Peter, his grandfather, a bird, a cat, a duck, and a wolf) in an original story by the composer about the importance of courage.

While Kuan and the HSO fully captured the dramatic spirit of the story and its happy ending, the standout performance was the finely tuned, folksy but urbane narration of music entrepreneur and HSO board member June Archer. When he related how (spoiler alert) the wolf swallowed the duck, younger audience members audibly gasped.

The program closed with a blazing rendition of Prokofiev’s 1944 fifth symphony. Composed when World War II was turning in the Allies’ favor, he intended it as “a hymn to free and happy Man, to…his pure and noble spirit.” The opening “Andante” was reflective and vibrant; the whirlwind “Allegro marcato,” relentless and sardonic; the slow “Adagio,” alternately radiant and brash; and the closing “Allegro giocoso,” an exuberant romp.

The HSO’s next Masterworks will again honor Sigal, who will conduct on October 18-20.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "The Planets"

The Bushnell, Belding Theater, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

June 7-9, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

Melissa White

Their ninth “Masterworks” program ended HSO’s 80th anniversary season on a festive note,
featuring an HSO premiere, the return of HSO 2023-2024 Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence, violinist Melissa White, and a beloved sonic spectacular.

HSO Music Director Carolyn Kuan opened the concert with an exuberant account of rising composer-educator Carlos Simon’s 2019 “Amen!,” a 14-minute tribute in three continuous parts to the music of his family’s African-American Pentecostal Church. Kuan and the orchestra captured the jazzy flow of the opening call and response, the soulful blues of the mid-section, which quotes the gospel song “I’ll Take Jesus for Mine,” and the exultant “Amen” spirit of the closing hymn.  

After her stunning HSO debut last October in Florence Price’s unfamiliar first violin concerto, White next soloed in a cornerstone of the standard repertoire, Max Bruch’s enduringly popular 1866 first violin concerto. With stellar support from Kuan and the ensemble, White skillfully shaded her tone from lean and silken for the haunting first chords, nimble and virtuosic for the following “Allegro moderato,” rich and full-bodied for the ravishing “Adagio,” to earthy and bubbly for the jubilant “Allegro energico” finale. 

Price's contrasting encore was a poised and graceful reading of the lively “Gigue” from Johann Sebastian Bach’s third partita for solo violin.  

The program closed with an electrifying performance of Gustav Holst’s 1917 suite for large orchestra, “The Planets.” The musicians leaned into the astrological significance of Holst’s descriptive subtitles for the seven movements, yielding: a shattering “Mars, the Bringer of War;” a magical “Venus, the Bringer of Peace;” a frisky “Mercury, the Winged Messenger;” a noble “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity;” a brooding “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age;” a mischievous “Uranus, the Magician;” and an eerie “Neptune, the Mystic,” whose wordless offstage chorus was evocatively voiced by seven distinctive locally-based singers: five sopranos and two altos.      

 

One measure of the capacity audience’s full immersion in the program was spontaneous applause and a loud “Woohoo” after “Jupiter,” to which Kuan turned and gamely replied “I agree,” with the crowd’s approval.

Next up for the HSO is a free “Symphony in the Park” concert on June 15 at 2pm in the Bushnell Park Pavilion.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Mozart & Prokofiev"

The Bushnell, Belding Theater, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

May 10-12, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

The eighth “Masterworks” program of the HSO’s 80th anniversary season presented three works in a ”classical” style and one recent piece in a more modern style. HSO Assistant Conductor Adam Kerry Boyles emphasized their differences rather than their similarities.

The concert began with Sergei Prokofiev’s 1917 first symphony, known as his “Classical Symphony” because he wrote it in the 18th-century style of Haydn and Mozart. But its four short movements – a buoyant “Allegro con brio;” a flowing “Larghetto;” a graceful “Gavotte: Non troppo allegro;” and a vivacious “Finale: Molto vivace” – also featured the spiky harmonies of his native Russia during World War I. Boyles and the HSO gave it a supple performance.

Angelina Gadeliya

Next came an HSO premiere, the 2016 piano concerto, “Spiritualist,” by New Jersey-born Kenneth Fuchs. In three short movements named after paintings by American artist Helen Frankenthaler – an ecstatic “Spiritualist;” a dreamy “Silent Wish;” and an exuberant “Natural Answer;” this colorful score was played with dexterity and imagination by Georgian-American pianist Angelina Gadeliya, with full-blooded support from Boyles and the orchestra.

Each painting was helpfully projected above the Belding stage, along with revealing overhead views of Gadeliya’s fluid hands at the keyboard.  Composer and soloist, both music professors at UConn Storrs, received a standing ovation from the enthusiastic audience.  

The program closed with two related 1786 works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: the Overture to his comic opera “The Marriage of Figaro;” and the Symphony #38, nicknamed “Prague” after the city where it was premiered. Boyles and the HSO gave the overture a perky and playful spin. Their “Prague” symphony highlighted the mature Mozart’s variety of melodic invention in all three movements, from a mercurial opening “Adagio-Allegro,” to a radiant central “Andante” and a whirlwind closing “Presto,” which quotes an aria from “The Marriage of Figaro.”

 

Boyles is an animated conductor, who leads without a baton and whose toolbox includes a wide range of facial expressions, hand motions, crouches, leaps, and other postures, all in service of the music. His warmth, sense of humor, and easy rapport with audience and musicians alike bode well for his future with and beyond the HSO.

The orchestra’s final Masterworks program (June 7-9) of the season will feature HSO Music Director Carolyn Kuan and violinist Melissa White in music of Simon, Bruch, and Holst.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Vivaldi’s Gloria"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

April 12-14, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

At first glance, the seventh “Masterworks” program of the HSO’s 80th anniversary season looked like a hodgepodge of disparate, unrelated works. But guest conductor Jacomo Bairos, quoting Hartford Chorale Music Director Jack Anthony Pott, called it a “garden” displaying the “wonderful variety” of classical music.  

The evening's concert opened with several selections from “Spirituals: A Medley,” 1920's arrangements by William Grant Still, the “dean of African-American composers,” of traditional Black spirituals. The ensemble was joined in all but one number by eloquent soprano Schauntice Shepard, who brought aching poignancy to “Were You There?” and fervent hope to “Deep River.”

Jacomo Bairos

HSO concertmaster Leonid Sigal was next featured in Edouard Lalo’s 1873 “Symphonie Espagnole,” a concerto for violin and orchestra in all but name. A Frenchman’s homage to Spanish musical traditions, its five movements included offbeat and imaginative rhythms and require a virtuosic soloist. Sigal’s secure technique and silken tone, which he shaded at times to achieve a husky, almost gypsy-like sound, met or exceeded the piece’s every demand. Bairos and the HSO matched their soloist in sensitivity and flair.

The other major work on the program was Antonio Vivaldi’s 1720 “Gloria,” which has become the best known of the Italian master’s many sacred compositions. The text of the half-hour work, sung in Latin by mixed chorus and soloists, is derived from the Catholic Mass. Its 12 short movements featured wide contrasts in tempo and dynamics, including several intimate passages for soloists and one or two instruments. Bairos led a thrilling performance, with robust, flexible, and lucid singing by the men and women of the Hartford Chorale, soprano Suzanne Lis, mezzo-soprano Hannah Shea, and notable contributions from all sections of the orchestra.

The program closed with a sumptuous reading of “Make Your Garden Grow,” the stirring finale of Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 Broadway musical “Candide,” based on Voltaire’s 1759 satire, with lyrics by poet Richard Wilbur. Tenor Dominick Chenes was a plangent title character, and Lis, a radiant Cunegonde, his loving bride. The Hartford Chorale, HSO, and Bairos offered vibrant support.

The Portuguese-American Bairos, currently based in Miami Beach, Florida and Lisbon, Portugal, has a charismatic, Bernstein-esque stage presence, and his strong rapport with HSO and its audience would make him a welcome return visitor to Hartford.

The HSO’s next Masterworks program (May 10-12) will feature music of Mozart and Prokofiev.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Copland & Bernstein"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

March 8-10, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

With a program of two complete ballets and a waltz, the sixth “Masterworks” weekend of the HSO’s 80th anniversary season offered three contrasting perspectives on the art of dance.

The first selection was notable in three respects. The orchestra and its Music Director Carolyn Kuan presented Aaron Copland’s 1944 ballet “Appalachian Spring” not in the usual concert suite, but complete; they played its original version for 13 instruments; and their performance was accompanied by a 1958 film of the ballet choreographed by and featuring Martha Graham, for whom it was written.

While the suite includes the most familiar music, the added visual dimension brought the missing numbers equally to life. And the 64-year-old Graham, in the leading role of the wife (the ballet depicts 19th-century newlyweds moving into a farmhouse) still danced with remarkable grace and agility. Kuan’s inspired leadership drew an intimate yet surprisingly full-bodied sound from the small HSO ensemble.    

The next work on the program made perhaps the most visceral impact: a buoyant account by the full orchestra of Leonard Bernstein’s ballet “Fancy Free,” also dating from 1944. This, too, was the complete ballet, not the concert suite Bernstein extracted from it. It tells the story of three sailors on 24-hour leave in New York who meet three women in a bar (the same plot soon became the musical “On the Town,” with different music by Bernstein and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green). Highlights included: a jazzy “Scene at the Bar;” a sinuous “Enter Two Girls;” and a sultry, Latin-flavored “Danzon.”

The program closed on a glamorous note, with ballroom dancers Anastasia Barhatova, director of the Fred Astaire Dance Studios in Suffield, and Andrew Kerski sweeping elegantly across the front of the Belding stage while Kuan and the HSO played Johann Strauss, Jr’s “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” behind them. A flop when it debuted in Vienna as a choral piece in 1867, the “Waltz King” reworked it for orchestra later that year, when it quickly became the epitome of the Viennese waltz. The musicians made it sound just as stylish and sumptuous as the dancers looked in their sequined gown and tuxedo.  

The HSO’s next Masterworks program (April 12-14) will feature guest conductor Jacomo Bairos and the Hartford Chorale.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Enduring Love Stories"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

February 9-11, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

With five musical selections about love stories and a married couple as featured performers,
the fifth “Masterworks” weekend of the HSO’s 80th anniversary season offered an early celebration of Valentine’s Day.

What better way to open the program than with Tchaikovsky’s popular 1869 “Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture"? Music Director Carolyn Kuan led the orchestra in an incandescent account, which captured the foreboding tension of the quiet opening, the drama of the family feud between the Montagues and the Capulets, and the youthful passion of Shakespeare’s famous lovers.    

Boyd Meets Girl

Next came the world premiere of Clarice Assad’s concerto for guitar, cello, and orchestra, "Anahata,” commissioned by the HSO for, and played here by, the duo “Boyd Meets Girl” – Australian-born guitarist Rupert Boyd and his wife, cellist Laura Metcalf. The composer notes, “Anahata," “unhurt”…in Sanskrit, refers to the heart,” and “its three movements explore…love’s wounds [and] its most precious dreams.”

From a stirring “The Color Green” to a haunting “Desert Roses” and a lively “Full Circle Reel,” the elegant solos and duets by Boyd and Metcalf blended sensitively with Assad’s brilliant orchestration (including water bowls), which reflected the Latin rhythms of her native Brazil.

The duo’s encore was a jazzy yet poignant setting of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” evoking America’s love affair with the Fab Four on the 60th anniversary weekend of their first appearance on the "Ed Sullivan Show".  

Tchaikovsky’s love for and regular visits to Italy inspired some of his finest music, like his 1880 “Capriccio Italien,” which quotes local tunes he heard in Rome. The HSO reveled in its solemn opening fanfare, sprightly folk dances, giddy tarantella, and closing blaze of orchestral color.

This was followed by a radiant performance of the sublime “Adagietto” movement from Mahler’s 1901-1902 fifth symphony, a musical love letter to his wife-to-be, Alma, which Kuan and the orchestra dedicated to beloved recently deceased 57-year HSO violinist Frank Kulig.

The overture to Offenbach’s 1858 opera “Orpheus in the Underworld” proved a surprisingly apt concert closer in these musicians’ exuberant reading. Its cheerful “Can Can” tune suggested a happier ending to the love story of Orpheus and Eurydice than his failure to bring her back from dead.  

The HSO’s next Masterworks program (March 8-10) will feature music of Copland and Bernstein.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Beethoven 5+5"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

December 8-10, 2023

by Michael J. Moran

For the fourth “Masterworks” weekend of their 80th anniversary season, guest conductor Gerard Schwarz led the HSO in two classic Beethoven fifths from 1808/09– his last concerto for piano and orchestra, nicknamed the “Emperor;” and perhaps the most famous symphony ever written.

HSO opened its program with the 2022 “Four Hymns Without Words” for trumpet and orchestra by African-American composer Adolphus Hailstork. He notes that “each begins with melody and harmony that sound like a hymn tune” and calls his music “tonal, lyrical, and very rhythmic.” The clarion tone of soloist John Charles Thomas, HSO assistant principal trumpet, and lively support from his colleagues and Schwarz revealed many colors in this stirring 10-minute suite.

Orion Weiss

Hailstork’s conservative modernism actually highlighted Beethoven’s radicalism two centuries earlier. At 40-minutes, his “Emperor” concerto was the longest written to date, and it started the now standard composer practice of writing all the notes formerly improvised in solo passages. Nationally acclaimed Ohio-born pianist Orion Weiss was a powerful and eloquent soloist, easily meeting Beethoven’s every technical challenge and the shifting emotional demands of a majestic opening “Allegro” movement, a sublime “Adagio un poco mosso,” and a rollicking “Rondo: Allegro” finale. Schwarz and the HSO were robust partners.

In complete contrast, Weiss responded to a rousing ovation with a ravishing encore of the hushed “Nocturne” from Grieg’s “Lyric Suite” that held the audience’s rapt attention for nearly five minutes.

The concert closed with an electrifying account of Beethoven’s fifth symphony that made this musical warhorse sound new again. From the familiar opening four-note motif of a tempestuous “Allegro con brio,” a flowing “Andante con moto,” and a stormy “Allegro” transition to a triumphant grandest of all grand “Allegro” finales, Schwarz had the HSO playing with white-hot intensity. Now Music Director of the Palm Beach Symphony, with previous experience leading the Seattle Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, his professional skill and engaging stage presence were much appreciated in Hartford.

The HSO’s next Masterworks program (February 9-11), “Enduring Love Stories,” will feature Music Director Carolyn Kuan and guest husband-and-wife duo Rupert Boyd on guitar and Laura Metcalf on cello in a world premiere titled "Girl Meets Boyd" by Clarice Assad, with music by Tchaikovsky, Wagner, and Offenbach.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Ravel & Debussy"

The Bushnell,  Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

November 10-12, 2023

by Michael J. Moran

As she did on the first two “Masterworks” weekends of their 80th anniversary season, HSO Music Director Carolyn Kuan surrounded two HSO premieres of recent rarities on the third program with two popular masterpieces from the standard repertory.

The concert opened with Claude Debussy’s 1894 Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun,” based on a poem of that name by Debussy’s friend Stephane Mallarme. In a spoken introduction, Kuan called it “the birth of modern music” and “full of ambiguity,” and the vibrant performance she led by the HSO captured both qualities, with special kudos to principal flutist Dominique Kim and harpists Susan Knapp Thomas and Mae Cooke.   

This was followed by fiery renditions of Chinese-born Huang Ruo’s colorfully scored four 2012 “Folk Songs for Orchestra,” which the composer hoped “to preserve and…transform…into new pieces of art.” Outstanding HSO soloists were concertmaster Leonid Sigal in “Little Blue Flower” and hyperactive percussionists Doug Perry and David West throughout.

Next came a real novelty: British-American musical polymath Michael Spivakovsky’s 1951

Cy Leo

Harmonica Concerto. Written in the light classical style of Leroy Anderson, its three tuneful movements demand the utmost virtuosity from the soloist. Hong Kong-born Cy Leo didn’t disappoint, tossing off its many challenges with kinetic and crowd-pleasing flair. Kuan and the HSO were committed accompanists.

But Leo’s encore - a jazz-inflected romp through the traditional Irish chestnut “Danny Boy” – was even more astonishing, from soulful interludes to audience handclapping, foot-stomping, and singalong. No more persuasive advocate for the harmonica in classical music can be imagined than this charismatic rising star.  

While the 15-minute suite is relatively familiar, the concert ended with Maurice Ravel’s seldom heard complete half-hour ballet “Mother Goose.” This 1911 score depicts four tales – Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, Beauty and the Beast, and the Empress of the Pagodas – in music of great delicacy and charm. Kuan drew a dazzling account from all sections of the orchestra, and the lush “Fairy Garden” epilogue brought the full ensemble together for an exhilarating happily-ever-after ending.   

At the HSO’s next program (December 8-10), “Beethoven 5+5,” guest conductor Gerard Schwarz will precede that composer’s fifth piano concerto (the “Emperor”), featuring pianist Orion Weiss, and fifth symphony with a new piece by African American Adolphus Hailstork.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra,"Dvorak & Price"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT 

www.hartfordsymphony.org

October 20-22, 2023 

by Michael J. Moran 

For the second weekend of their 2023-2024 “Masterworks” series, HSO’s Music Director,
Carolyn Kuan, bracketed an HSO premiere of a recent rediscovery with two established masterworks of the high Romantic era. 

The concert opened with a highly charged reading of Johannes Brahms’ “Tragic Overture.” Written in 1880, alongside his more upbeat “Academic Festival Overture,” the composer noted that while “one overture laughs, the other weeps.” From two forceful opening chords, through a somber main theme, a tender contrasting lyrical theme, a turbulent development section, and a powerful close, Kuan and her musicians fully honored what Brahms called his “melancholy nature.” 

Melissa White

Next came the sleeper hit of the program, Florence Price’s first violin concerto. Dating from 1939 but unperformed in public until 2019, ten years after it was found among her lost manuscripts, this appealing piece is quickly gaining its rightful place in the repertory. No finer performance could be imagined than that of HSO 2023-2024 Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence, violinist Melissa White. Her silken tone and technical finesse captured the charm and drama of the opening “Tempo moderato,” the blues-inflected African-American flavor of the “Andante,” and the fiery excitement of the closing “Allegro.” Kuan and the HSO were robust partners. 

A standing ovation brought White back for a ravishing encore account of the hushed “Adagio” from Johann Sebastian Bach’s third sonata for solo violin, in which she held the rapt audience in the palms of her hands. 

The concert ended with a blazing rendition of Antonin Dvorak’s 1884 seventh symphony. Though less popular with the public than his later “New World” symphony, Dvorak is known to have called the seventh his greatest symphony. Reflecting his grief at the death of his mother a year earlier, the piece opens on a dark, brooding note, but this is soon offset by glimpses of Dvorak’s typically sunny disposition. Kuan and the orchestra brought driving urgency to these shifting moods in a sweeping “Allegro maestoso,” a radiant “Poco adagio,” a lilting Czech-infused “Scherzo: Vivace,” and a heroic “Finale: Allegro.” 

The HSO’s next program (November 10-12) will pair new-ish works by Huang Ruo and Michael Spivakovsky with familiar classics by Debussy and Ravel and will feature a rare (in classical music) harmonica soloist, Cy Leo.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Elgar’s Enigma"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT 

www.hartfordsymphony.org 

September 29 - October 1, 2023

by Michael J. Moran 

The HSO Brass Quintet

For the first weekend of their 2023-2024 “Masterworks” series, the HSO’s Music Director,
Carolyn Kuan, framed two HSO premieres of contemporary works with two standard repertory favorites and spotlighted the talents of several orchestra members. 

After a vigorous traditional season-opening national anthem, they launched directly into Franz Schubert’s 1822 eighth symphony, which he inexplicably left “Unfinished” after completing only two movements. Kuan and the HSO offered a dramatic “Allegro moderato” and a radiant “Andante con moto.” 

Next came conductor-composer Gerard Schwarz’s 2012 arrangement for harpsichord, strings, and brass quintet of three movements from George Frideric Handel’s 1739 Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 9. The HSO Brass Quintet – John Charles Thomas and Kenny Piatt, trumpets; Barbara Hill, horn; Brian Diehl, trombone; and Jarrod Briley, tuba – added a spiky modern edge to Handel’s familiar Baroque harmonies and met the work’s technical demands with ebullience. 

The Quintet was then joined by percussionist and sometime HSO player Doug Perry in a rollicking take on Ohio-based composer-educator Daniel McCarthy’s jazzy 1995 “American Dance Music, Concerto for Brass Quintet and Percussion with Orchestra.” 

All five dances in varied American rhythms were performed with virtuosic flair. Diehl’s sinuous trombone solo in “Serenade” and endearing tuba/xylophone duets by a nimble Briley and an agile Perry in “Unsquare Dance” and “Jazz” were especially entertaining. Jazz pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines’s “Rosetta” was a jaunty encore by the Quintet. 

The program closed with a thrilling account of Sir Edward Elgar’s 1899 Variations on an Original Theme, “Enigma,” which put the English master on the musical map. Highlights among the fourteen brilliantly played variations were: a warmly impassioned first, for Elgar’s wife; a whirlwind fourth, for an energetic friend; an intensely moving ninth, titled “Nimrod,” for Elgar’s publisher (often played separately as a memorial piece); an exuberant eleventh, for a neighbor and his bulldog; and the last and longest one, a grandiloquent self-portrait. 

A similar mix of more and less familiar pieces is on tap for the HSO’s next program (October 20-22), which surrounds Florence Price’s first violin concerto with popular works by Brahms and Dvorak and features the HSO’s 23-24 Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence, violinist Melissa White.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Tchaikovsky & Pride"

The Bushnell, Belding Theater, Hartford, CT 

www.hartfordsymphony.org 

June 9-11, 2023 

by Michael J. Moran 

Carolyn Kuan

The HSO and Music Director Carolyn Kuan closed their 2022-2023 “Masterworks” series on a festive note, celebrating Pride Month with a program of a classic popular symphony and two world premieres, both commissioned by the orchestra. 

It began with a white-hot reading of the sixth symphony, the last completed work by Tchaikovsky, who, as Kuan noted in opening remarks, “struggled with his sexuality,” and died mysteriously a week after conducting its premiere in St. Petersburg, Russia, in October 1893. From a vivid “Adagio-Allegro non troppo,” a glowing “Allegro con grazia,” and a brilliant “Allegro molto vivace,” to a devastating “Adagio lamentoso” finale, Kuan drew playing of deep conviction from her musicians, which fully reflected the Russian translation of the symphony’s nickname, “Pathetique,” as “passionate.”      

Next came an exciting account of HSO inaugural artist-in-residence Quinn Mason’s short rhapsody, “She Dreams of Flying,” dedicated to Kuan, whom he calls “one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met.” It featured an offstage trumpet, played evocatively by HSO assistant principal trumpet John Charles Thomas, who was gradually joined by his colleagues across the ensemble in this “tribute to persistence and inspiration.” Their warm advocacy for the piece suggested the pride they took in collaborating with their creative partner. 

The concert ended with a heartfelt rendition of “Stonewall 69,” a suite from English composer Iain Bell’s 2019 opera “Stonewall,” which was commissioned by New York City Opera and premiered there under Kuan. The colorful first movement, “Downtown, tonight,” introduced several characters in the opera; the dramatic second, “No…just NO!,” depicted resistance to a June 1969 police raid on Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn that launched a national gay rights movement; and the peaceful finale, “The Light of Day,” portrayed, in Bell’s words, “a sense of hope and emboldened responsibility to effect change.” The music’s visceral impact was amplified by visual artist Yuki Izumihara’s historical and abstract images simultaneously projected over the Belding Stage.      

With engaging live introductions to both world premieres by their composers, this program was a personal triumph for Kuan, who not only welcomed members of the LGBTQ+ community to the hall but also emphasized the uniquely healing power of music to bring people together.  

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven by the Rivers

The Bushnell, Belding Theater, Hartford, CT 

www.hartfordsymphony.org 

April 14-16, 2023 

by Michael J. Moran 

Jie Chen

The rivers referenced in the title of this concert and in the three works on the seventh program of the HSO’s 2022-2023 “Masterworks” series are: the Vltava (Moldau) in the Czech Republic; the Yellow River in China; and an unnamed brook in the second movement of Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony. Music Director Carolyn Kuan conducted. 

The program opened with a vigorous account of Bedrich Smetana’s 1874 “The Moldau,” the second of six symphonic poems depicting scenes of Czech history and landscape called “Ma Vlast” (“My Country”). At Kuan’s aptly flowing tempo, the musicians fervently evoked the river’s adventurous progress from a quiet mountain stream past a lively hunt, peaceful pastures, a rowdy wedding feast, stately castles, nymphs dancing at night, turbulent rapids, and beyond view.       

Chinese-born pianist Jie Chen next made a rousing HSO debut in the orchestra’s first performance of the “Yellow River Concerto,” adapted in 1969 by six Chinese musicians from Xian Xinghai’s 1939 “Yellow River Cantata.” The concerto’s four movements were inspired by poems of Guang Weiran which were set in the cantata: “Song of the Yellow River Boatmen;” “Ode to the Yellow River;” “The Yellow River in Anger;” “Defend the Yellow River.” The music’s style reflects Chinese folk traditions and the romanticism of Liszt and Rachmaninoff. Chen met its showy virtuoso demands with consummate ease; Kuan and the HSO were avid collaborators. 

The program closed with a bracing rendition of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 1808 sixth symphony, which he not only nicknamed “Pastoral” but also gave descriptive titles to all five movements. Kuan set a brisk pace for “Awakening of Cheerful Feelings on Arrival in the Country,” which the ensemble keenly followed. They relaxed for an amiable “Scene by the Brook,” reveled in a high-spirited “Merry Gathering of Country Folk,” roared through a tumultuous “Thunder, Storm,” then celebrated a heartfelt closing “Shepherd’s Song: Joyful, Thankful Feelings after the Storm.”    

By the end of the concert, the entire Belding Theater's audience felt refreshed not only by the waters of spring but by the enduring rapport Kuan has nurtured with a reshaped HSO after over a decade of leadership and the strong partnership they’ve built with a committed and growing audience.   

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Symphonie Fantastique"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT 
www.hartfordsymphony.org 
March 10-12, 2023 
by Michael J. Moran 

For the fifth program of the HSO’s 2022-2023 “Masterworks” series, Music Director Carolyn Kuan selected contrasting repertoire, including two popular short pieces by a path-breaking African-American composer, a new cello concerto by a leading woman composer, and a one-of-a-kind Romantic symphony by a one-of-a-kind 19^th-century composer. 

It opened with two rags by Scott Joplin: “Rag-Time Dance, A Stop-Time Two Step” (1899); and “The Entertainer” (1902) – in orchestral arrangements by composer-conductor-educator Gunther Schuller. The first was excerpted from a ballet, while the second became famous in the score for the 1973 film “The Sting.” Kuan and the HSO’s affable first-ever performances of this music got the concert off to a relaxed, swinging start. 

Inbal Segev

The orchestra extended the dance rhythm theme with Anna Clyne’s 2019 “Dance, Concertofor Cello and Orchestra,” in which Israeli cellist Inbal Segev made her stunning HSO debut. Clyne named its five short movements after lines from a poem by 13^th-century Persian mystic Rumi in which she felt a strong “sense of urgency.” 

Her use of electronic, folk-style, and “Baroque-like” elements - and Segev’s skill in pivoting from dark, rich tone in the opening “when you’re broken open” movement to more abrasive sounds in the next movement, “if you’ve torn the bandage off” - made the attractive musical setting feel timeless. Conductor and orchestra were committed partners. Segev’s heartfelt encore, the “Sarabande” from Bach’s third suite for solo cello, reinforced the calm simplicity of Clyne’s “when you’re perfectly free” finale. 

No composer who preceded or followed him ever wrote music that sounded quite like that of French composer Hector Berlioz. In 1827 Berlioz fell in love with English actress Harriet Smithson on seeing her in Paris as Shakespeare’s Juliet and Ophelia. In 1830, he chronicled his unrequited love for her (they eventually wed, but the marriage failed) in his five-movement “Symphonie Fantastique.” 

Kuan and the HSO gave the  a thrilling ride, from a dramatic “Reveries [and] Passions,” a light, graceful “Ball,” a ravishing “Scene in the Country,” an exuberant “March to the Scaffold” (after the lover hallucinates that he’s killed his beloved), to a riotous closing “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath” (the lover’s own funeral rites) – a sacred/profane mix that still galvanizes audiences two centuries later. 

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Breaking Beethoven"

Bushnell, Belding Theater, Hartford, CT 

www.hartfordsymphony.org 

December 2-4, 2022 

by Michael J. Moran 

BRKFST Dance Company

Leave it to canny programmer and HSO Music Director Carolyn Kuan not only to put
Beethoven and breakdancing on the same concert but together in that composer’s arduous “Grosse Fuge,” with which she and the orchestra’s strings daringly opened the third program of their 2022-2023 “Masterworks” series. It was an inspired choice, as the athletic group and individual movements of the eight-member Minnesota-based BRKFST Dance Company, founded in 2014, made the daunting 16-minute score, even in this lucid performance, easier for the audience to follow. 

The next piece on the program, Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)’s 2010 “Dancers, Dreamers, and Presidents,” was a more natural fit for the dancers. Inspired by a brief 2007 dance between presidential candidate Barack Obama and Ellen DeGeneres on her TV show, this eclectic 21-minute tone poem drew on the Haitian-American composer’s background in rock, hip-hop, and jazz. The white-hot ensemble, enlarged by a drum kit and synthesizer, and amplified with audacious BRKFST choreography, joyously realized DBR’s vision of “instruments…combining, layering, and ‘dancing’ with one another.”     

HSO Artist in Residence Quinn Mason, a 26-year-old African-American composer and conductor based in Dallas, Texas, then introduced his 2020 piece “Immerse,” which he called “a study in texture” influenced by Messiaen. The committed rendition by Kuan and the orchestra of this meditation, which also reflects the sound world of Copland, offered a quiet contrast in instrumental timbres to DBR’s blazing colors. 

    

The program closed with a vigorous account of Beethoven’s rarely heard 1802 second symphony, whose sunny disposition belied the anguish he was feeling at the time from a rejected marriage proposal and the onset of his deafness. The opening “Adagio Molto-Allegro con brio” was brisk and bracing, the “Larghetto,” graceful and flowing, the “Scherzo: Allegro,” playful and boisterous, and the “Allegro Molto” finale, an exuberant race to the finish line. 

Speaking early in the concert, Kuan explained pairing Beethoven with breakdancing as a way of reaching out to everyone in the HSO’s potential audience and thanked her listeners for supporting this programming strategy. The diverse make-up of the enthusiastic overflow crowd suggested that she and the HSO are helping to build a healthy future for classical music in America.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "Debussy & Ravel"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT 

www.hartfordsymphony.org 

November 4-6, 2022 

by Michael J. Moran 

In the second weekend of its 2022-2023 “Masterworks” series, the HSO and their Music Director Carolyn Kuan explored various forms of rejuvenation through music, from the transformative power of water in Mason Bates’ “Liquid Interface,” to the translation of moonlight into Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” and of dreams into his “Nocturnes,” and the career-extending gift of Maurice Ravel’s “Piano Concerto for the Left Hand” to a pianist who lost his right arm to war. 

Debussy drew inspiration for “Clair de Lune” (“Moonlight”), which opened the program, from Paul Verlaine’s poem of the same name three times, twice in settings for voice and piano, and as a movement of his 1890 “Suite Bergamasque” for solo piano. That version, orchestrated by French musician Lucien Cailliet in 1905, was luminously performed by the HSO and Kuan.    

Next came a welcome reprise of Philadelphia-born Mason Bates’ 2007 showpiece “Liquid Interface,” which Kuan first introduced to HSO audiences in April 2017. She helpfully explained its four movements, with musical illustrations from orchestra members, before recorded sounds of glaciers breaking apart opened the turbulent first movement, “Glaciers Calving.” This was followed by a gentle “Scherzo Liquido,” a dramatic “Crescent City,” contrasting the joy of New Orleans jazz with the destructive flooding of Hurricane Katrina, and a peaceful closing “On Lake Wannsee” in Berlin. The ensemble gave a colorful account of this crowd-pleasing score. 

Alessio Bax

In justifying her decision to present only the first two (“Clouds” and “Festivals”) of Debussy’s three Nocturnes, Kuan cited the composer’s dissatisfaction with the sound of the wordless women’s chorus in the first performance he heard of “Sirens.” She and the HSO rendered the haunting mystery of “Clouds” with delicate nuance and the sensual exuberance of “Festivals” with controlled abandon. 

The concert ended with a riveting performance by Italian-born New York-based pianist Alessio Bax of the concerto Ravel composed in 1930 for Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, whose right arm was amputated after a World War I injury. Bax handily met its daunting technical challenges, from a stirring early cadenza to a jazzy middle section and an exhilarating finale; his left-handed dexterity across the keyboard looked especially vivid on the Belding’s overhead camera. Bax’s two-handed encore of a Brahms Hungarian dance transcription was even more rejuvenating.   

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, "American Adventures"

The Bushnell, Belding Theater, Hartford, CT 

www.hartfordsymphony.org 

October 7-9, 2022 

by Michael J. Moran 

Valerie Coleman

For the first weekend of its 2022-2023 “Masterworks” series, the HSO and their Music Director Carolyn Kuan treated audiences to an engaging mix of new and familiar works by four varied American composers, each depicting in some way the adventurous American spirit. They moved without pause from a lively rendition of the traditional season-opening national anthem into the newest piece on the official program, Valerie Coleman’s 2020 “Seven O’Clock Shout.” 

Written, in the composer’s words, to celebrate the “heartwarming ritual of evening serenades” which thanked frontline workers during Covid lockdowns, this exuberant 5-minute “anthem that embodies the struggles and triumph of humanity” drew playing of joyful conviction from the musicians, including enthusiastic vocal shouts in a nod to the “African call and response style” of Coleman’s heritage. 

This was followed by, astonishingly, the HSO’s first-ever performance of Ferde Grofe’s popular five-movement 1931 “Grand Canyon Suite.” Kuan led a colorful account of this cinematic score, with jazzy inflections that honored its original version for Paul Whiteman’s dance band: the first movement, “Sunrise,” built from a hushed opening to a grand climax; “The Painted Desert” was haunting and mysterious; “On the Trail” veered from an easygoing trot to the riotous bray of a burro; “Sunset” was calm and radiant; and “Cloudburst” brought the suite to a dramatic close.   

Next came the eight-section suite from Aaron Copland’s 1944 “Appalachian Spring.” Composed for Martha Graham’s dance company, the Pulitzer Prize-winning ballet portrays, according to the score, “a pioneer celebration in spring around a newly built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early…19th century.” The HSO was spirited in the faster sections and luminous in the slower ones, including the “calm and flowing” scene that features five variations on the classic Shaker melody, “Simple Gifts.”   

Bringing the program to an exuberant close, complete with saxophones, tom-toms, and taxi horns, was a brilliant performance of George Gershwin’s 1928 paean to the city of light, “An American in Paris.” You don’t need to know every stop on the adventurous, though occasionally homesick, tourist’s itinerary to get caught up in the sweep of this vivid travelogue, which kept the HSO brass and percussionists especially happy and audiences humming all the way home.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth

Bushnell, Belding Theater, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

June 10-12, 2022 

by Michael J. Moran

For the ninth and final “Masterworks” weekend of their current season, HSO Assistant Conductor Adam Boyles and the orchestra went all out with a spectacular program of two contrasting masterpieces from 1995 (Philip Glass’s “Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra”) and 1824 (Beethoven’s “Choral” symphony). 

Few composers have written concertos for even one saxophone, so Glass’ piece featuring four of them was a rare treat, especially as exuberantly played by the Hartford-based Resurgam (“I shall rise again” in Latin) Quartet, formed at the Hartt School in 2015. The first movement was gentle and flowing, the second jazzier, with a raucous duet by soprano sax Harry Kliewe and alto sax Colette Hall, the third quietly mesmerizing, with flashy solos by tenor sax Sean Tanguay and baritone sax Michael Raposo, and the finale a whirlwind dash to the finish line.    

Their crowd-pleasing encore, the perpetual motion finale of John Mackey’s 2012 “Unquiet Spirit” saxophone quartet, was played with all the staggering “barn burner” virtuosity demanded by its American composer.    

The concert ended with a grippingly dramatic account of Beethoven’s ninth symphony. For scope of ambition, length and variety of content, and sheer grandeur of impact, this iconic work was unprecedented in its time and only challenged in the following two centuries by Gustav Mahler. The opening movement was eerie and forceful; the “Molto vivace” scherzo, visceral and relentless; the “Adagio” slow movement, radiant and enthralling; and the choral finale, which included the Hartford Chorale, prepared by their music director, Richard Coffey, and four vocal soloists, built powerfully to a thrilling close.

Baritone Sumner Thompson vividly proclaimed the recitative which introduces the chorus singing Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” a poem Beethoven had long admired. Thompson blended beautifully in later passages with crystalline soprano Jamilyn Manning-White, lush mezzo-soprano Margaret Lias, and supple tenor Jordan Weatherston Pitts.      

With a range of dynamic gestures, Boyles drew playing of deep conviction and technical polish from all sections of the orchestra, particularly the brass and percussion members whose skills were showcased throughout the program. His evident rapport with musicians and audience alike suggests that his leadership of more HSO subscription concerts would be welcome.