On Saturday night I went to Vallejo to hear the new-ish Vallejo Festival Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Conlin. I'd never heard the orchestra or the conductor before, and I'm ever so happy to report that the concert was exemplary in every way: a well-played, well-conducted, stylistically-appropriate all-Sibelius concert with a really wonderful singer. It was all deeply satisfying. This is why it's good to see whatever you can; you never know when you'll hear a better concert by a regional orchestra than you heard days earlier with a world-famous ensemble.
I did not manage to get one point into my review: this was one of the few programs I've seen where the conductor's and soloist's comments from the stage truly added to the program, owing to the ability of both to connect sincerely and openly with the audience. That is very hard to do, so even more hats off to Thomas Conlin and soprano Katherine Whyte. I'm looking forward to the next Vallejo Festival Orchestra concert, you bet.
4 comments:
Absolutely true. I've held for a long time now that the Redwood Symphony does better Mahler than the SFO under MTT. And the best Sibelius Second I've ever heard was in Symphony Silicon Valley's opening season.
I'm sorry that Vallejo is a little hard for me to get to, but I've gone further than that for a truly enticing program, so I'll put this group on my list to check their schedules.
My best Sibelius 2 was Alan Gilbert and the NY Phil at Carnegie Hall, on a program with the Rienzi overture and Magnus Lindberg's fabulous clarinet concerto. I definitely need to get to more of the regional orchestras.
Presumably you're going to the upcoming California Symphony program? Zemlinsky, Mahler (Alma), and Rott?
Oh yes. I never thought I'd hear the Rott Symphony live, but here it is.
I'm guessing you'll be at today's concert? I have a ticket, and decided to forego the Thibaudet Debussy recital that I've been looking forward to for months. Bad planning: I took a review for last night and should have done CA Symphony instead and gone to Thibaudet tonight. Oh well!
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