Xian Zhang debuts with Cleveland Orchestra: Plain Dealer review

The Plain Dealer reviews NJSO Music Director Xian Zhang’s debut performance with The Cleveland Orchestra, writing:

The rousing and often poignant performance [of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony] she led made at least one listener wish the symphony hadn't been absent so long.

The conductor's stir-the-pot approach paid huge dividends, warding off tedium and generating powerful and vivid dramas. She also evinced a firm grasp of the work's larger structures. Each of the four movements told its story in an organic and compelling manner.

And yet Zhang didn't have her eyes only on the big picture. For all its collective sweep and large-scale turbulence, her reading contained just as much that was refined and nuanced, as well as virtuosity at the individual level.

So ethereal were the orchestra's swirling woodwinds, the Spirit of the Alps they conjured in the second movement Thursday was almost physically palpable. Equally vivid were the personalities evoked by the whole ensemble in the Pastorale.

Manfred the poetic character does not survive. He transcends his agony in death. Manfred the Symphony, meanwhile, lives on, gloriously, via Zhang and the Cleveland Orchestra.

» Read the full review at cleveland.com

Zhang leads two additional performances with The Cleveland Orchestra this weekend in place of Semyon Bychkov, who withdrew due to illness.

A live concert broadcast airs on WCLV 104.9 FM and at www.ideastream.org tomorrow, February 18, at 8 pm.

» Listen to the live broadcast at ideastream.org – Sat, Feb 18, at 8 pm

» Learn more at clevelandorchestra.com