“Is Eckart Preu the ideal music director for Spokane’s symphony orchestra? Signs point to yes,” writes Larry Lapidus in Monday’s (1/27) Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington). “Nowadays, a music director must not only be a compelling conductor, but must show a gift for building an audience through personal charisma and creative programming … [and] be able to bring the orchestra to … a high level of excellence…. Saturday’s performances at the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox showed Preu excelling on all counts” in a program “illustrating the interaction of cultures that has gone into the development of American music…. Ross Holcombe, the orchestra’s principal trombone, was the soloist for John Mackey’s brilliant and compelling Harvest: Concerto for Trombone (2009).… Preu emerged … wearing a referee’s striped shirt to conduct Inguesu by Enrico Chapela (2003). Preu was illustrating the program of Chapela’s piece: the minute-by-minute course of [the 1999 FIFA Confederation Cup] soccer match…. Impressive, too, was Preu’s achievement in conveying Bernstein’s [Symphonic Dances from West Side Story] not as a random assemblage of favorite moments from a Broadway show, but as an organic work of art.” Also on the program were Aaron Copland’s El Salon Mexico and Carlos Chavez’s Symphony No. 2.
Posted January 28, 2014
