From The Oak Ridger
Story last updated at 12:55 p.m. on Monday, May 17, 1999

Stellar concert closes ORCMA season
The Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra, the Oak Ridge Chorus and the Partes Choir
Saturday night at the Oak Ridge High School auditorium

by Becky Ball
for the Oak Ridger

While Boris Yeltsin and the Duma were feuding in discord, members of the Partes Choir of Obninsk, Russia, were tuning their voices precisely in harmony, and with the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

You don't need Paul Hindemith to tell you that "people who make music together cannot be enemies, at least while the music lasts." But the reminder Saturday night at the Oak Ridge High School auditorium was a peaceful thought, and it digested well with the stellar concert that closed the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association's 1998-99 subscription season.

ORCMA's evening of musical feats and good will between Oak Ridge and its sister city was sponsored by Bechtel Jacobs Co. Corporate support came from a grant from Nuclear Fuel Services, and further financial support came from CDM, Boeing, and Science Applications International Corp. All treats were made possible by Oak Ridge's Sister City Support Organization, headed by Edmund Nephew, not to mention Chorus Director Serge Fournier, whose behind-the-scenes chorus training contributed to the joint chorus and orchestra success.

And now some space for reviewing the performances, all directed by Maestro John Welsh, with the exception of three bonus songs performed by the Partes Choir, directed by Tatyana Bulgakova. If praise comes out in bullet form, blame the concert planners.

In the good-news department of contemporary composers comes a new name to cherish. William M. Harrell's "Slavonica, Sketches for Orchestra and Choir" was a lovely mingling of Russian Orthodox long-lined chants and folk melodies made fresh and new by modern form and treatment. The sketches were structured much like a three-movement suite, beginning and ending with well-defined melodies and their cousins that fanned out and faded away. Like a good story, it had a beginning, a variation, and an ending that recalled where it all started.

The middle sketch with its sudden injection of jazz idioms showed a lot of rhythmic, harmonic and instrumental imagination. No style or solo ride wore out its welcome, and there were no gimmicky contemporary shocks to mar the listening experience. If all of Harrell's music is as well thought out as this, show us more! The combined choirs and orchestra did him proud.

Rachmaninoff's cantata "Spring" is not a rose garden. The lyrics concern a husband's nasty thoughts of killing his wayward wife, a mentality aggravated by the harsh Russian winters. With spring comes a change of heart and joy in the music, but like some East Tennessee springs it comes a little late.

Fortunately, words were not communicated, unless listeners buried their noses in the printed libretto. The choirs, bless their linguistic hearts, sang in Russian, leaving us to our guilty pleasures of enjoying Rachmaninoff's beautifully crafted, intensely dramatic workmanship and gloomy emotions, which Welsh went after with visual passion.

The high point was the baritone solos, sung by Victor Theophylactov, with typical Russian commitment to the marriage of words and voice inflections. With operatic intricacy he went beyond, transfiguring the lyrics into a thing of rare vocal beauty.

John Welsh guided mood, tempos and phrases with good attention to weight and phrasing. If he had held down the orchestra a little more so that the chorus could shine equally, the cantata would have been even more impressive.

Only 14 members could make the trip to Oak Ridge, but the energy and verve of the reduced Partes Choir's voluptuous singing left no one wanting. A Russian hymn of praise, a folk song and a whimsical wedding song were our three "gifts" from the choir, and all were served beautifully.

The Partes singers make their voices and breaths sound like one. Their crisp staccato phrases glitter, and their emotion conspires with their technique. It's as if one well-placed note isn't quite enough; they must polish it with a higher, more spiritual gloss.

Tatyana Bulgakova leans over quietly to urge her singers to bring out small touches of poetry, and then lets them soar in a seamless flow of beauty. The soprano soloists were marvelous.

In Rimsky-Korsakov's enormously popular "Scheherazade," the title lady averts her execution ordered by the Sultan (yet another male chauvinist pig!) because she fascinates him with her storytelling. These stories are played out in four orchestra movements with a delightful range of woodwind solos guiding the moods, not to mention the Scheherazade theme that oozes hauntingly in and out.

Concertmaster Helen Breyenton's poised and lovely playing immediately captured the audience. As each principal woodwind soloist excelled, the audience got quieter and quieter. Bravo to Jennifer Regan (flute), Sheryl Howard (oboe), Becky Morris (English horn), Martha Anderson (clarinet), Mike Benjamin (bassoon) and Bill Schwenterly (French horn).

The orchestra was a versatile machine in its own colors and virtuosity. The players even wove a little magic. They made a composition full of passing interests add up to something considerably more. It was a terrific selling job and the large crowd bought it, awarding it with loud cheers and a standing ovation.

Under John Welsh's aggressive and capable direction, the season came to a great climax. It ended big and harmonious, what with Serge Fournier's Oak Ridge Chorus and Tatyana Bulgakova's Partes Choir adding musicality and tonal flair.

Gifts and speeches were exchanged between the sister cities and everybody left feeling warm-hearted. But Saturday night live at the Oak Ridge High School came down finally to music -- the international language the whole family can speak. May these ecumenical joint affairs continue.

Becky Ball is a music critic for The Oak Ridger.

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