“They may be a most unlikely orchestra in New York, but the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra went anything but gentle into that Carnegie Hall night,” writes Harry Rolnick in Wednesday’s (2/28) Concertonet.com. For the orchestra’s debut Carnegie program, of music by Philip Glass and Silvestre Revueltas, “We were blanketed with sound…. [In] Revueltas’s La noche de los Mayas … Music Director Carlos Miguel Prieto’s tour de force—literally—were the 14 (14!!) percussionists spreading over the back of the stage…. The last movement … was a percussion cadenza lasting around 15 minutes, with every player taking turns, or harmonizing, and making as grand a sound as possible.” Philip Glass’s Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra featured Jim Atwood and Paul Yancich in “virtually Bachian counterpoint…. After a wild cadenza for the two, the Louisiana Phil built up a passionate finale.… In the audience was Gabriela Ortiz, an extremely accomplished Mexican composer who had written her Concerto Voltage for the orchestra. For about 15 minutes, the entire Phil … again made Carnegie Hall bounce…. The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and Maestro Prieto … gave us New Yorkers … a rare, tumultuous, primal, percussive, explosive joy.”
Posted March 1, 2018
