"Season of Change" wrapped up

Saturday, April 5, 11 p.m.
    Miriam Burns just wrapped up what we’ve calling “The Season of Change” at the S.C. Philharmonic. The music director of the Tallahassee Symphony and cover conductor for the New York Philharmonic, she was the last of seven candidates trying out this season to be the new music director of the Philharmonic. It’s been an exciting year full of mostly good music played mostly very well.
    This concert, and Burns, fell somewhere in the middle of the seven. Everything was solidly played, especially an early (1951) piece by Gyorgy Ligeti influenced by Romanian folk music and the closing Symphony No. 4 by Tchaikovsky. The Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major wasn’t exactly dazzling. But overall a good concert with a decent range of works. Burns is a solid conductor keeping the orchestra moving and taking care of the details very well, the latter being especially important in Ligeti's  “Concerto Romanesc”
    Before the concert Burns came out to the side of the stage and thanked the audience for coming and considering her for the position. Then she talked about the “Concert Romanesc.” Certainly it was a new work for the orchestra and probably just about everyone in the audience, but she told us much more than we needed to know about it and nothing at all about the other pieces. Talking about the composer and his work in larger terms (he was a more adventuresome composer than this piece shows and he was also quite popular as his music was used in several Stanley Kubrick movies) would have done more good. Too many conductors go on and on about unfamiliar works, which is somewhat patronizing to the audience. In spite of the long explanation, the music didn’t get buried in it.
    But the piece was played very well (and the second half of it more interesting than those who know his later work might imagines) and Tchaikovsky was a powerful and emotional wrap up. It was a good, if not spectacular, end to the season.
     Within the next few weeks, it’s likely a conductor will be named. All the seven appear qualified, but all sorts of factors go into the decision; how they got along with the musicians, staff and board, their potential for fund-raising, how committed they would be and how much money they need.
    For me it has been a great learning experience and great fun to attend these concerts, drag some unsuspecting escort along and make them write after, meet the conductors and talk to audience members.
   The best thing has been hearing the orchestra sound very good. Because in the past it didn’t. I do hope whoever is hired shakes things up. The orchestra has to play the warhorses and should. But I would love to hear older works it hasn’t taken on in the past and more newer pieces. I’d hear concerts somewhere other than the Koger Center from time to time and concerts aimed at a broader audience without dumbing down.I’d like to see the orchestra double its budget, hold more rehearsals and hire more musicians. And I’d like to hear it play from this day forward as well as it has played this season. Bravo.
Jeffrey Day .