Pops' musicianship wowed crowd | REVIEW
By Dan Shaw (Contact)
Sunday, December 7, 2008
It never fails to impress me how high the quality of musical training is in the country.
I am fairly new to Evansville and hadn't had an opportunity - before Saturday - to attend a concert of the city's philharmonic orchestra. But over the years I have seen performances from groups of a similar size and have found them to be consistently good.
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In short, one doesn't have to go to New York or Chicago to hear very fine music played by very fine musicians. This observation found support once again when the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra performed the first of the Peppermint Pops concerts series Saturday.
Named "Christmas Through the Eyes of Children," the program featured the Indianapolis and Evansville children's choirs. Their performance, in particular, was strong evidence of just what musicians in this country are capable of these days.
After a buoyant rendition of "We Need a Little Christmas," from the musical "Mame," the Indianapolis Children's Choir turned next to a traditional carol: "Deck the Halls."
It was the same melody everyone knows but arranged in a very untraditional manner. Rather than in the four-beats-to-the-bar way that most of us are used to belting out this favorite, the choir sang it in seven-eight time, lending it an odd lilt.
This is the sort of rhythm that a century ago would have given trouble to veteran musicians in some of the best orchestras of the world. But the children managed it so well that I was able to enjoy myself, rather than sit on the edge of my chair in fear that the whole thing would fall apart.
Accompanying the choir in other pieces was an orchestra that proved to be equally up to the task. The philharmonic was flexible enough to create the very different sorts of atmospheres needed for pieces such as the melancholy "I Wonder as I Wander" or the jazzy "Sleigh Ride."
In the latter, the strings mustered up the right glossy carpet of sound for their featured passages. The brass, for their part, demonstrated that they could conjure up all the requisite raucousness of a big swing band when it came time for the "shout chorus."
Other highlights of the evening, for me, included an excerpt from "The Nutcracker" danced to by members of the Evansville Dance Theatre; a version of the Spanish song "Arruru" and "Christmas Time is Here" from a Charlie Brown Christmas.
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