MUSIC REVIEW : Golabek With Joyeux Players

A fine way to stretch the musicianship of promising students is to have them play together with an established professional.

Members of the Joyeux Woodwind Chamber Players, whose ages range from 16 to 21, did exactly that by inviting pianist Mona Golabek to join them as a guest artist for a single work on a three-part program Thursday at Gindi Auditorium at the University of Judaism.

The Joyeux Players is an ensemble offered as a course at the R. D. Colburn (formerly Community) School of Performing Arts near USC. For their vehicle with their guest, members picked Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Woodwind Quintet.

Not surprisingly, Golabek provided the driving, stylish and cohesive force in this witty, engaging three-movement work.

She offered fluent, fluid, fluttery and percussive rhythms on demand and ranged through a variety of colors. She spun out the composer’s lyric phrases and added a dollop of wryness under the lyric lines.

She knew when to emphasize elegance and when to incline toward jazziness, when to be intimate in expression and when to be outgoing.

Joining her were Alison Hearn, flute; Margaret Gilinksy, oboe; Michelle Lucia, clarinet; Christopher Stevens, bassoon; and John Bancroft, horn. All were attentive and duly challenged by the association.

Music director Yehuda Gilad energetically led members of the ensemble in two other chamber works which did not actually need a conductor: Beethoven’s Rondino in E-flat for four pairs of woodwinds, played cautiously; and Dvorak’s Serenade in D for 11 instruments, played with commitment, energy and a sense of style, though lacking in refinement.