Janette Beckman
Jennifer Koh returns for an encore performance with IRIS Orchestra.
The 10th season of the IRIS Orchestra came to a triumphant close Saturday night with a robust blend of brilliance.
It has been a remarkable decade of well-crafted performances by top musicians from around the country (local players included) who are joined by stellar guest artists to dish up some great classical music.
Maestro Michael Stern, who has led the group from the beginning, promises more years of good tunes ahead. The recently announced next season will have Yo-Yo Ma and several other luminaries that give much to look forward to.
Janette Beckman
Jennifer Koh returns for an encore performance with IRIS Orchestra.
For Saturday's performance at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre, Stern programmed the fascinating "Serenade after Plato's Symposium" by Leonard Bernstein. The guest soloist was violinist Jennifer Koh, who brought a breathtaking emotion to the performance.
She performed the same piece with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra in 2007, and the response was one big "meh," the audience feeling more platonic than passionate.
But the IRIS listeners this weekend stood and cheered. Rightly so, for Koh burned through the piece with grace and frenzy. It is, after all, a work based on a discourse about amor, and the love was everywhere by the time Koh worked her magic.
Less interesting by far was the evening's opener, Ravel's "Valses nobles et sentimentales," touted by Stern as a masterpiece but more resembling an appetizer of broccoli. Good for you, I reckon, but let's move on.
The finale was a sure-fire winner, however. The no-risk Dvorak Symphony No. 9 ("The New World") is a sumptuous work, packed with passages familiar not only to fans but also to anyone who has ever watched a Western or documentaries about purple mountains majesty.
The orchestra was exceptionally tight on the Dvorak, except for the occasional rugged individualist brass player choosing his own down beat, but the grandiosity of the piece and the great care taken by Stern and the orchestra made it pay off like manifest destiny.
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