Music Reviews : Beach Cities Symphony Steps Into Limelight

The Beach Cities Symphony, now in its 40th year, usually goes about its business with little fuss and not much attention. Friday night at El Camino College, however, the orchestra, led by its music director Jerome Kessler, ventured the premiere of a new work by film composer Lee Holdridge and stepped briefly into the limelight.

Holdridge is best known for his music to such films as “Splash,” “Mr. Mom” and “Mahogany.” He collaborated with Neil Diamond on “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” Occasionally, he will have a go at music without movies: His Violin Concerto No. 2 has been recorded by the London Symphony.

The work given a premiere Friday, “Sonnet,” is a modest, unpretentious setting of an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem. It is certainly no great creative departure from Holdridge’s film-music style. Thoroughly tonal, with gentle, sustained string writing accompanying a flowing vocal line, the work is over before you know it, lasting around five minutes. There are a couple of rising violin solos, some flute flutters, harp strums: It’s pretty and pleasant and quite easy to forget.

Soprano Andrea Lawrence sang it ably. Her clear, lightweight voice also filigreed through arias from Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette,” “Gianni Schicchi” and “Die Fledermaus.” As an encore she offered Holdridge’s inspirational and sappy “An American Hymn.” The climactic words, “I stand up proudly in the sun and say, I am home,” are sufficient example.

Framing the singing were performances of Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The orchestra consists largely of amateurs, both young and old, who play in the group for fun--not profit. The concerts are free. Suffice to say that the performances were more conspicuously spirited than polished.