Brown Conducts Sibelius

                On Saturday, February 23, Justin Brown conducted the Alabama Symphony Orchestra’s performance titled Brown Conducts Sibelius.  The concert began at 8:00 p.m. in the Alys Stephens Center’s Jeminson Concert Hall. An interesting aspect of this particular ASO performance was that the music played covered a century in musical composition, starting with works from Sibelius (1865-1957) and continuing through that of Finzi (1901-1956) and Britten (1913-1976) with a return at the end to another of Sibelius’s symphonies.  Featuring the acclaimed violinist Daniel Szasz and tenor Nicholas Phan as well as Justin Brown’s directorial skill, Brown Conducts Sibelius was a memorable performance.

                The reputation of the conductor brought high expectations for the night’s show.   Justin Brown, a Cambridge-educated English pianist and symphony conductor, was already a familiar conductor to the Alabama Symphony Orchestra’s audience as the six-season Music Director Laureate of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.  Brown has directed symphonies by Sibelius as well as Bruckner within the past year with the ASO, and he is well-known internationally for conducting some of the most prestigious symphonies in the U.S. as well as Europe.  It was with his vast experience on the world stage that Saturday night’s collection of pieces combined musical talent and compositions from around the world.

                The show began with Sibelius’s “Symphony No. 6 in D minor Op. 104.”  The opening string sequence was gorgeous and ethereal in a way separate from what would appear later in the night as a violin solo.  Though the piece was fairly light amidst the cheery woodwinds and even verged on jovial at times, a resolute tone could be detected in varying degrees throughout the stringed voices. 

                Following the fourth movement of Sibelius’s Symphony, the violin soloist Daniel Szasz wowed the audience with his part of Finzi’s “Violin Concerto.”  Szasz, another frequent musician of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, is the current concertmaster of the orchestra. As his violin cried through the concerto, the Romanian violinist reminded the audience of the internationally-acclaimed talent residing in Birmingham and contributing to musical culture of the area.

                The night’s performance returned after intermission to finish with Britten’s “Les Illuminations, Op. 18” featuring nine movements and the up-and-coming tenor Nicholas Phan.  Phan, who was just recently named one of National Public Radio’s Favorite New Artists of 2011, sings with many orchestras around the country, often performing works from Britten. It’s clear why; he confidently carried the piece not only accompanied by the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in its typical composition, but with a few more string players than who normally play on that stage.  

Everything from the violin’s raw precision to the timpani player’s uncommonly iridescent mane bore the presence of timeless works being interpreted in a fresh way throughout Saturday night’s performance.