Music Reviews : 5 From Composer Assn. Give Concert at CSUN

With few surprises but lots of solid music-making, the work of five composers from the National Assn. of Composers, USA delivered an engaging concert Saturday night in the Recital Hall of Cal State Northridge. Each of five pieces, demonstrating a routine, academic style with ties to Neo-Classicism, were presented with strong performances that made the music easy to assimilate.

Topping the bill was the world premiere of Frank Campo’s Trio for clarinet, cello and piano. Conceived in a casual, intimate parlor-music idiom, the three movements exchanged fun rhythmic ideas and quick phrases. Campo performed the clarinet part with ease while cellist Jerome Kessler and pianist Francoise Regnat mastered the lyrical melodic fragments.

The West Coast premiere of a piano piece, “Homenagem (In Memoriam Heitor Villa-Lobos)” by Aurelio de la Vega, found few technical problems for pianist Betty Oberacker, who performed with aplomb. The score meanders through various jazz sections, boom-chucking marches and pan-tonal stretches relentlessly emphasizing the minor seventh.

A new version--expanded to include a clarinet and cello part--of “Cuatro Canciones Sobre Poesias de Federico Garcia Lorca” by Morton Lauridsen was constructed with finely honed motivic structures. Soprano Lisa Stidham sang the Lorca texts with warmth and insight while pianist Joseph Lawson provided a sturdy accompaniment. The occasionally added flurries, performed by Al Rice, clarinet, and Tom Flaherty, cello, were also steadily delivered.