# the joy of live performances



## SCHLEMO

A High-Five for This Live Performance
There can be many drawbacks in attending a live classical music performance, even if you are in the front row, my favorite spot. I get annoyed when I hear whispering, throat clearing, and coughing in the audience. And the artists themselves can distract from the music, particularly when they sweat, drool, smirk, inanely grin, dress provocatively, or perform robotically. 
I encountered none of these hindrances at the May 7 concert of the American Music Festival in Morehead City, North Carolina. I thus was able to devote all of my attention to the main attraction, soprano Maria Jette. Although she has performed with celebrated groups like the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and has frequently sung less operatically on The Prairie Home Companion, her name was unfamiliar to me; but not from now on. 
Jette has an exquisitely rich and vibrant voice that she first displayed in the poignant Brahms’ Geistliches Wiegenlied, Dvorak’s Songs My Mother Taught Me, Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise, and Previn’s Vocalise. After the intermission, she crisply and jauntily sang Americana Mother’s Day ditties like Henry Pease’s Oh Mother: I’m Wild! , and she ended the concert by eerily imitating animal noises in Steve Heitzeg’s Crow Cadenza and Prayer Council. 
But what impressed me the most about Maria Jette was not her voice per se—a CD recording could have reproduced the same vocal quality and range. Watching her was the best part of the concert. She had tremendous poise throughout the performance. Her facial expressions, from the sentimental to the sardonic, perfectly fit the tenor of the works. While she didn’t flaunt her talent (or her abundant sylphlike charm), you could feel that she was in complete control of every nuance. No matter what she was singing, there was no doubt that she embodied the essence of the piece.
For a mere $40, I and my eight-year-old granddaughter were thoroughly entertained. With five concerts per year—featuring noted guest artists and the Carolina Piano Trio—the American Music Festival is a cultural oasis in coastal North Carolina.



A Woman for All Seasons
My wife and I recently attended a riveting classical music concert at the Manoa campus of the University of Hawaii. The piano soloist Soyean Lee was in complete command, whether her fingers were galloping across the keys or caressing each note as if it were a precious, intimate moment. It is rare to see a performer with such power and grace. And her facial expressions were just as appealing as her playing. When she reverently hovered over a slow passage, she pursed her lips into a perfect oval as if she were in a Zen state; when she dashed through a fiery interval, she almost laughed with delight. 
Her main selection, Albeniz’s Iberia is not normally one of my favorite: listening to it on a CD never moved me. But after watching Soyean Lee revel in its pathos and joy, I am much fonder of the piece.
I have no doubt that Ms. Lee, only in her 20’s, is already a consummate artist. Her passion—and I hope that it sustains her throughout her career—reminds me of Leonard Bernstein’s buoyant (if at times flamboyant) conducting. If she ever would change her name, I’d vote for Leona Bernstein. 

A Commanding Performance
I had never heard about the guest conductor at the Hawaii Symphony concert I attended last week, but I will never forget him from now on. Some maestros are robotic. Not Junichi Hirokami. He rivalled Leonard Bernstein in his rapturous expressions—from delight to dolor. No baton for him—his whole body was swirling with dramatic rhythms. Throughout the performance, his face was engagingly beaming, even beatific at times, especially during the rhapsodic second movement of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto #2. His exuberance during Khachaturian’s Masquerade was so consuming that he almost levitated with every crescendo. And Hirokami enjoyed himself immensely with two Richard Strauss compositions: he frolicked through Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks and waltzed himself through the Der Rosenkavalier Suite. I could sense that the orchestra and the audience were as captivated by him as much as I was. Hirokami might be short physically, but he has overwhelmingly convinced me that he has enormous stature.

An Evening Hour of Pure Delight in Vienna
The concert at St. Anna’s that I mentioned in my last vignette deserves more loving detail. 
The string quartet ensemble were new to me (the players were most likely in their thirties, and their names were absent from the program and from the classistic.com website), but they are as good as it gets. 
The concert consisted of three works: the Mozart “Hunt” string quartet, the Haydn Serenade, and Beethoven’s fourth string quartet. Not only did the ensemble have total mastery of each piece. They also reveled in the joy of making music, something that can never be approximated in just listening to the group on a CD. Watching them perform was as captivating as hearing them play.
From the middle of the front row, I had a great view of the first violinist, the violist, and the cellist, the only male in the ensemble. I could only see a little of the second violinist because she was so short. I was transfixed on the first violinist; she was a gem. She enjoyed herself so much that occasionally she couldn’t help but ever so sweetly smile. She was at one with the violin—it was an intimate part of her, and she reveled in it throughout the evening. Her tone was superbly measured, whether lush (Mozart’s third movement), lilting (throughout the Haydn Serenade), brisk (Mozart’s and Beethoven’s last movements), or fierce (Beethoven’s first movement).
I saw the violist and the cellist, when I could wrest my eyes from the first violinist, play with equal enthusiasm and aplomb. I was captivated by their heartfelt rapport with the music and particularly with each other. 
For an encore, the group played Bach’s well known Air on the G-string. Normally, I like to hear that work on original instruments, but last night I didn’t mind one bit. The ensemble performed it with just the right amount of schmaltz, an endearing confection to die for.
The ensemble’s five-star music making (I’ll give the obscured second violinist a pass) was not a chore but a celebration of the glory of life itself.


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