Davies Hosts Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival

Once again, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO), led by Radu Paponiu, hosted the annual Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival in Davies Symphony Hall. They shared the stage with four other Bay Area ensembles:

1. Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra with Music Director Jim Stopher
2. Santa Rosa Symphony Youth Orchestra with Music Director Jaco Wong
3. Young People’s Symphony Orchestra with Music Director David Ramadanoff
4. California Youth Symphony with Music Director Leo Eylar

Newscaster Wendy Tokuda served as Master of Ceremonies.

Marin began the program with the overture to Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Nabucco. This could not have been a better opening, putting the full ensemble to good use. Stopher conducted without a score, keeping his full attention focused on all of the performers.

Wong took a smooth segue from Gabriela Lena Frank (the “Pinkillo Serrano” movement from Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra) to Sergei Prokofiev, his Opus 100 (fifth) symphony in B-flat major. The latter was limited to its last (Allegro giocoso) movement. This involved a fair amount of cello work, which came across as weak. This may have been just as well since there were major problems with the overall balance of the ensemble. Far more confident was the SFSYO approach to Johannes Brahms’ Opus 80, his “Academic Festival” overture with an “encore” of Martin Schmeling’s orchestration of the fifth of the Brahms “Hungarian Dance” compositions.

Antonín Dvořák’s summer residence, where he composed his Opus 88 (photographer not identified, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

The second half of the program began with David Ramadanoff leading the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra in the first movement of Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 88 (eighth) symphony in G major. Sadly, the conductor did not appear to be particularly connected to his score, but the ensemble seemed quite capable of maintaining the necessary inertia. More problematic was Leo Eylar’s approach to Paul Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” which never seemed to find the right balance across the composer’s engaging instrumental diversity. The program then concluded with an “all hands on deck” performance of the final movement of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 93 (tenth) symphony in E minor.

Since I made my move to the Bay Area, I have tried to keep up with this annual gathering of youth orchestras. I like to think of them as forecasting what to expect in future concert performances. As can be seen from the above account, this year’s forecast was a mixed one. On the other hand, forecasts can only be speculative; so all I can do is wait to see if I ever encounter any of yesterday afternoon’s performers in the future!