“Violins of Hope, the collection of Holocaust-era string instruments curated by the Israeli instrument makers Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein, came to Oakland on Saturday, Feb. 22, prodding the Oakland Symphony and Music Director Michael Morgan in a variety of new directions,” writes Joshua Kosman in Monday’s (2/24) San Francisco Chronicle. “There was a Baroque concerto. There was a ballet [and] a tender and lithe performance of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony…. There was an array of these violins … distributed among the members of the orchestra’s violin section [and given] a starring role in Vivaldi’s F-Major Concerto for Three Violins, RV 551 [in which] a spirit of communal cooperation—the sense of an entire ensemble working together as one—came through…. The orchestra’s collaboration with the Oakland Ballet [featured] ‘Borderlands,’ choreographed in 1995 by that company’s Artistic Director Graham Lustig to music by Steve Martland. It isn’t very often that you go to an orchestra concert and a ballet breaks out, but this beguiling 25-minute creation made you wonder why it shouldn’t happen more often…. For the Mahler, Morgan adopted an interpretive stance full of warmth and rhythmic freedom, which is just what this symphony—the composer’s most easily approachable—calls for.”
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