Music Reviews : Peter Rejto in Strawberry Creek Festival Program

In Smothers Theatre at Pepperdine University in Malibu, it did not take long Saturday to remember why the Strawberry Creek Festival always proves to be such an engaging summer series. The setting is cozy, the music making first-rate, and the programs refreshingly creative.

None of the three works on this program by the Strawberry Creek Festival Orchestra suffers from overexposure. It was exciting to hear Kodaly’s “Dances of Galanta” as the opening work, particularly in a highly energized reading conducted by Yehuda Gilad. From an orchestra significantly smaller than one customarily employed for such a work, the festival’s music director elicited a bold, brilliant sound and maintained judicious balances.

And how exciting it also was to hear Peter Rejto put so much fire into Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. Rejto produced a big, muscular tone and used it to full advantage, delivering a fervid and heroic performance of this difficult work. The orchestra lent strong support, and Richard Todd’s vibrant, penetrating horn solos contributed handsomely.

Mozart wrote his serenades for inattentive audiences, but Gilad made it all but impossible for the mind to wander Saturday. He presided over a strikingly clean reading of the “Posthorn” Serenade that practically exploded with good-natured ebullience. His was a performance of both spark and subtlety, grace and gusto.