“A Houston punk rock legend front and center at a classical concert, a virtuoso concertmaster, a stellar bass-baritone singing nursery rhymes and tombstone epitaphs, and three world premieres,” writes Sherry Cheng in Sunday’s (2/11) Texas Classical Review. “Throw in a couple of Dvořák’s Legends and the rarely heard Wood Notes by William Grant Still, and we have a strange brew of a program that surprised and engaged [at] the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra’s annual conductorless concert … Saturday night … led by violinist Scott St. John…. The focal point of the concert was a tribute to Houston punk rock legend Christian Kidd [by] Chicago-based composer Dan Visconti…. In writing Legendary Love, Visconti was inspired by … the love poems Kidd writes to [his wife, Alexis] on a regular basis…. The ten-minute work … begins with the orchestra uttering the voiceless consonants of ‘ph’ and ‘ch’ to imitate the sound of distant waves.… A return to the sound of ocean waves leads to an asynchronous recitation of a moving love poem by Kidd. As the words ‘an inspired self-expression’ recede with the last wave, the glassy sound of string harmonics, gong, and chimes captured a feeling of the ethereal.”
Posted February 14, 2018
