Music Reviews : Philharmonic Institute Opens Season at Royce Hall

Though together less than a week, the 100-plus musicians who comprise the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute Orchestra demonstrated not only a wealth of energy and enthusiasm--we expected that--but, in their opening concert at Royce Hall Sunday, a remarkable degree of refinement.

Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” gives every section ample opportunity to show its mettle, and each did so with virtuosic elan. The work also allowed Institute conducting fellow Kate Tamarkin to demonstrate her abilities, as she presided over a carefully balanced, rhythmically precise and emotionally charged reading.

Lynn Harrell, who is serving as artistic director for the summer institute, served on Sunday as soloist in Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C. With probing vision and stylish phrasing, he breathed new life into the familiar work.

His pure, vibrant tone--rich and seductive in the low register, clear and weightless up high--his faultless control and the apparent effortlessness of his playing made listeners long to hear more.

He obliged by offering an unaccompanied encore: Pablo Casals’ “Song of the Birds,” delivered with emotive poignancy.

Another conducting fellow, Keith Lockhart, while using excessively busy gestures, achieved a clean, accurate accompaniment for the concerto.

After intermission, another member of the institute faculty, Heiichiro Ohyama, mounted the podium for Brahms’ Symphony No. 2.

The playing for him was as propulsive, energetic and impassioned as his motions, but it never became unruly, and Ohyama kept dramatic elements under control. One might have asked for more linear clarity or an adjustment of balances--the orchestra sometimes sounded bottom-heavy--but one couldn’t have asked for more alert, earnest music-making.