MUSIC REVIEWS : The Show Goes On for Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra of L.A.

It was not the best of times for the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra of Los Angeles. Before founder-conductor Akira Kikukawa died on Thursday of a heart ailment, he requested that a concert he had planned for Sunday afternoon at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, should go on without him.

It did, but not without some significant changes. Originally planned as a collaboration between the 28-year-old orchestra and the Roger Wagner Chorale, the concert proceeded under the batons of Wagner himself, who conducted the sections for choir and orchestra, and Frederic Balazs, who substituted the original Dvorak/Toyama program with a pair of Bach pieces arranged for orchestra, the Andante Cantabile from Tchaikovsky’s First String Quartet arranged for string orchestra and Morton Gould’s “American Salute.”

The Hungarian-born Balazs, who traveled from San Luis Obispo where he teaches, arrived at the last minute when he heard of his friend’s death and agreed to fill in. A former guest conductor for JPOLA and holder of several conducting posts for groups scattered around the Southwest, Balazs conducted diligently but received less-than-adequate results from the ensemble.

Apparently, and forgivably, he didn’t have the time to rehearse the orchestra properly. His own arrangement of the Arioso from Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto in F minor found many problems in performance as did Stowkowski’s orchestration of the same composer’s Passacaglia for organ. Specifically, the orchestra was lethargic and unresponsive; at one point Balazs actually had to count out an entrance aloud.

The part of the program with chorale proved lighter--and easier to manage. Conducting from a chair, Wagner expertly led the choir and orchestra in a series of folk tunes from around the world.

The concert concluded with Wagner’s rousing arrangement of “America the Beautiful,” followed by a dutiful, but flawed reading of the Gould piece.