Music Reviews : Young Musicians Orchestra Opens Season

The Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra opened its 35th season Sunday afternoon at Royce Hall in a decidedly impressive manner. The music--by Haydn, Mozart and Bruch--may have been familiar, but the music making was as fresh and invigorating as it comes. Credit youth.

After all, no one in this orchestra is over 26 years old. But unlike most other youth orchestras, this ensemble, at least this year’s installment of it, can be listened to without allowances for age. Sunday’s concert was as technically accomplished as many a professional endeavor, and certainly less routine. Jung-Ho Pak, the orchestra’s gifted conductor-in-training, led confident and sparkling performances.

Amid all this talented youth, 11-year-old violinist Leila Josefowicz stole the show. Make no mistake about it, Josefowicz is a remarkable musician, not your run-of-the-mill Wunderkind. Bruch’s First Violin Concerto was her chosen vehicle, and her performance of it was as splendid for what she didn’t do as for what she did.

From the start, she delved right into the heart of the first movement’s aggressive lyricism, never overplaying it, but giving weight to the lines with unhurried phrasing and dramatic emphasis. She seems to understand the emotional rhetoric of this music and allows it to sing at its own natural pace, without forcing the point.

In the second movement her playing was quietly restrained, warm yet firmly controlled. She took a leisurely jaunt through the finale: The focus was on the playful buoyancy of the music, not on displaying dexterity. The orchestra accompanied her with uncommon energy and polished execution.

Debut orchestra alumnus Patrick Kunkee was the soloist in Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, which opened the program. An assured trumpeter with a round, velvety tone and solid technique, he stressed a rich, easy-flowing lyricism and forcefully enunciated virtuoso passages.

To close, Pak led his players from the harpsichord in a robust, glowing account of Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 in E-flat.