About two and a half weeks ago, Founding Music Director Don Scott Carpenter led his new ensemble, called the Zephyr Symphony, in its first concert performance. The program consisted of four compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, concluding with his final symphony, often known as “Jupiter,” K. 551 in C major. This past Thursday, a video of that “last symphony” was uploaded to YouTube.
Don Scott Carpenter conducting his Zephyr Symphony
The venue for this performance was St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, which is better known for chamber music and choral performances. However, as can be seen from the above screenshot, both ensemble and conductor fit into the space on the stage as smoothly as Cinderella’s foot into her slipper. While no credits were provided on the video, many of the faces in the ensemble were familiar to me, including Aaron Westman on viola and bassoonist Jamael Smith.
Audio recording was managed by David v.R Bowles, founder of Swineshead Productions, LLC; and the video was directed by Nicholas Domaguing. I have no idea whether Domaguing was aware of Jordan Whitelaw or his talents in directing performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra; but the results were definitely true to Whitelaw’s convictions, which he supposedly expressed when he said, “If you don’t see it, you may not hear it!” Any lover of Mozart’s music has probably listened to more accounts of K. 551 than can be enumerated, but the video delivered no end of details that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.
The home page for the ensemble does not say anything specific about repertoire. I have no idea how many of the instruments could be classified as “period.” All I know for certain is that the trumpet was valveless! More important is that Carpenter’s conducing maintained a balance that allowed the attentive listener to relish both the overall ensemble and a host of significant passages reflecting the diversity of the instrumental sonorities.
Zephyr will return to St. Mark’s a few days before Christmas. As might be guessed, this will be the first time that the instrumentalists will perform with the Zephyr Chorus. One can also guess that the music will be George Frideric Handel’s HWV 56 oratorio Messiah, but this will be an abridged version.
No comments:
Post a Comment