Star-Ledger: ‘NJSO’s season opener swings’

Sep 26, 2016

The Star-Ledger reviews the NJSO’s 2016–17 opening-night performance with violinist Sarah Chang and guest conductor Teddy Abrams, writing:

After the opening night tradition of "The Star Spangled Banner," [guest conductor Teddy Abrams] tore into a rollicking rendition of Leonard Bernstein's suite from "On The Town" ... the music sounded lithe, buoyant and fun.

These bits were some of the first pieces Bernstein wrote for the stage, and thanks to Abrams you can hear both the simplicity in the music as well of the seeds of the syncopated blasts and rhythms that would rumble Broadway and the world a few years later.

...

[Violin soloist Sarah Chang] was more than up to [The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires'] challenges. At one point, after a particularly difficult passage, she swung her bow in the air in a gesture of triumph as well as relief.

Chang played the 25-minute piece from memory, savoring the rusty, spiky elements of Piazzolla's score. Principal cellist Jonathan Spitz played beautifully in the "Autumn" section and principal bassist Paul Harris joyfully kept the backbeat moving along. Most impressive was the way the string section elucidated the theremin-like otherworldly sounds of the piece, and then transitioned in the baroque quotations from Vivaldi's famous "Four Seasons." After intermission, Chang impressed with her fiddle playing, this time in Ravel's "Tzigane." (Again, played without a score, from memory.)

Another virtuosos work, "Tzigane," opened with Chang playing unaccompanied for about three minutes straight. She was then joined by Stacey Shames' lovely harp plucks that brought in the whole orchestra. Ravel's 10-minute love letter to Eastern European and gypsy melodies featured kaleidoscopic symphonic colors as well as an assortment of musical textures.

» Read the full review at www.nj.com.

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