“I heard a lot of invigorating and unusual orchestral music this week. The Shift festival of American orchestras … finished its second iteration on Saturday night,” writes Anne Midgette in Sunday’s (4/15) Washington Post. “After the Fort Worth Symphony’s opening concert … the Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller showed its bent for new music with 2 1/2-hour program that included three concertos by established American composers: Joan Tower … Michael Torke … and Michael Daugherty, whose mellifluous tuba concerto ‘Reflections on the Mississippi’ has become a showpiece for the remarkable tuba player Carol Jantsch. Arguably stealing the show, though, was an endearing piece for youth chorus and orchestra about the Erie Canal, which filled the stage with Washington-area kids singing wholeheartedly. The Indianapolis Symphony showcased music by composers from Poland, the native land of its music director, Krzysztof Urbanski, who was authoritative in this outing with his home orchestra.… The real showpiece was the Credo by Krzysztof Penderecki, a rousing and powerful work in the grand classical tradition.… The National Symphony Orchestra concert … was offered in [Russian baritone Dmitri] Hvorostovsky’s memory [and featured] Stravinsky’s ‘Pulcinella’ … Casella’s version of Balakirev’s ‘Islamey,’ and Respighi’s orchestration of five of Rachmaninoff’s Etudes-Tableaux.”
Posted April 17, 2018
