Performance Report I

Symphonic Oscars

As I have mentioned on my previous blogs about the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO), the prolific organization of professional musicians has countless events and performances in store for the public and patrons whether they appreciate classical or other popular genre of music. Different guest conductors and musicians are often featured in many of the DSO concerts, which makes the experience suitable for a wide variety of audiences. On April 2^nd and 3^rd, 2010, the DSO held one of their Pops Series concerts – Symphonic Oscars – at the grand performance hall of the Meyerson Symphony Center. Each concert started at 8pm and lasted about 2 hours. I personally attended the opening night’s concert.

This particular concert featured a variety of famous film score music from some of the most cherished American motion pictures of all time. The repertoire included music from Ben Hur, The Godfather, Pinocchio, Gone With the Wind, Pocahontas, The Wizard of Oz, and more. Most of these, if not all, were meant to be recognizable to the audience who has either seen the movies or listened to their soundtracks. Each piece in the repertoire helped visualize the corresponding scenes from the actual movies. For example, listening to the “Parade of Charioteers” from Ben Hur, it was effortless to envision the Roman charioteers preparing for the deadly race for glory. The march-like, pulsatile rhythm, wide range of notes, catchy, definitive theme, and loud timbre of the heterogeneous ensemble of strings, winds, and percussion all contributed toward captivating the attention of the audience’s ears. On the other hand, some of the more quiet and mellow pieces, such as Suite from The Godfather, could be distinguished with more of a flowing melodic contour, smaller range of notes, slower rhythm, and emotional collaboration of cadences and phrases.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra itself performed for the entire concert, but guest conductor Richard Kaufman led the ensemble. Not only the energetic conductor, who was constantly waiving his arms about at the orchestra, but also all of the other performers showed genuine enthusiasm in their work through each piece by moving with the flow of the music, which was sometimes gentle, and sometimes dramatic. Whitney Kaufman, who happens to be the conductor’s daughter, came out on stage as the vocal soloist for “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio, “Whatever Will be Will Be” from The Man Who Knew Too Much, “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz and more. The singer in particular tended to “act out” parts of lyrics for the more “exciting” songs with a mike in hand rather than setting it on the mike stand so that she could freely move around while singing. Her musical-like performance using various facial expressions and specific gestures effectively delivered the emotional range and musical elements to the audience. The stage presence of the performers was obviously professional since all members of the orchestra were wearing black in unison as if to highlight their shiny instruments and the sound projected from them. The vocal soloist, however, wore a flattering blue dress for the first half of the program, and then changed into a green one for the second half. It made sense that the soloist should be visually unique from the rest of the ensemble.