By Eileen Wingard in La Jolla, California
With Assistant Conductor Robert Zelickman as clarinet soloist, the Jewish Community Symphony, under the direction of David Amos, presented a diverse program Feb. 15 in the Garfield Theatre at the Lawrence Family JCC.
It featured music by five different composers, British Ralph Vaughn Williams, Russian Peter Illitch Tchaikovsky, German Carl Maria von Weber, American John Williams, and Armenian Aram Khatchaturian. Two of the works, Vaughn Williams’ Overture to The Wasps and Williams’ “Viktor’s Tale,” from the film The Terminal were unfamiliar.
Overture to The Wasps opened the concert. It was written for a production of Aristophanes’ ancient Greek play, The Wasps, produced at Trinity College. In the play, the jury was compared to a hive of wasps as they deliberated. The trills and tremolos in the strings were reminiscent of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Those sections, well-played by the orchestra’s strings, alternated with lovely melodic episodes influenced by English folk songs.
Tchaikovsky’s Suite from Sleeping Beauty used the piano to imitate the harp. Those harp passages were nicely rendered by pianist Pam Monroe, a graduate of the Cleveland Conservatory.
The orchestra was particularly engaging in the last movement of the suite, getting just the right swung in the “Waltz.”
After intermission, Zelickman played the Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra by von Weber. His performance was characterized by beautiful phrasing and varied dynamics.
The orchestra followed him well. The second offering by Zelickman featured a long, virtuosic cadenza, in which he shone.
Three Dances from the Gayneh Ballet rounded out this varied and entertaining program. The final “Sabre Dance,” familiar to most, had many listeners tapping the mesmerizing rhythm in time with the orchestra.
How fortunate we are to have such a community orchestra, now housed in the Lawrence Family JCC, carrying on its more than half century tradition of warm camaraderie and volunteer music-making.
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Eileen Wingard, a retired violinist with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, is a freelance writer based in San Diego.