MUSIC REVIEWS : SITKA/LA CHAMBER FESTIVAL ENDS

Not all hands were busy stretching across the land Sunday afternoon. Some--enough to pack a downtown hall--were madly clapping for the Sitka/LA Festival of Chamber Music, the last concert in this series taking place at the Japan America Theatre.

As if anyone could blame the applauders. After all, the appreciation being heaped on these musicians was not exactly undeserved. And the program they played happened to be the kind that elicits gratitude--ending, as it did, with Mendelssohn’s ravishingly joyous Octet.

Nowhere, in fact, did Sunday’s nine-member ensemble let spirit wane. Particularly in the world premiere of Henri Lazarof’s Serenade for string sextet did Yukiko Kamei, Masuko Ushioda, Milton Thomas, Marcus Thompson, Stephen Kates and Jeffrey Solow bring into focus their acute musical sensibilities.

Conducted by the composer, the piece speaks about things bucolic, as a serenade might, but with a modern accent that hints of complexity and discord. Typically, Lazarof writes music of great refinement and appeal. Here, in addition, he manages to embrace a wide emotional range while elucidating its elements with pinpoint delicacy.

The Serenade alternates between pizzicato piquancy and dense, long-lined mystery before a masterful finale of suspended lyricism. An utterly engaging work.

In Brahms’ Piano Trio, Opus 8, Jerome Lowenthal joined string players Kates and Christiaan Bor for what sounded like an ad hoc performance--as opposed to an ultimately worked-out one. The Mendelssohn, too, gathered more strength from its elan than any sense of hair-raising perfection.