MUSIC REVIEWS : Director John Larry Granger Leads South Coast Symphony in Finale

The South Coast Symphony brought its sixth season to an impressive conclusion Saturday night at Orange Coast College. Music director John Larry Granger had chosen a familiar--some might say hackneyed--program for the occasion, but his ensemble played it with untainted enthusiasm and technical assurance.

Still problematic is the bone-dry acoustic of the college’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, which renders the orchestra’s sound boxy and unresonant. One hopes the new Irvine Theatre, home to half of the orchestra’s expanded 10-concert season next year, proves more friendly sonically.

The high point of the evening came with Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto in G minor with Diane Hidy, filling in for an ailing Michael Sellers, as soloist.

Hidy gave elegant clarity to its virtuosic fleetness, gracefully weaving through all those swift twists and turns with precision and authority. In more poetic moments she communicated intimately through supple lyricism. Granger and orchestra supported tidily and alertly, though occasionally straying in intonation.

Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony concluded the program, in a reading which proved unapologetically straightforward. Granger gave the music forthright statement and clear direction with propulsively compact phrasing, unclouded textures and emphatic punctuation. The orchestra responded with bravado, the strings in particular showing impressive unanimity. Granger may have missed some of the climactic grandeur in this music, but he amply compensated for it through tautness and unwavering intensity.

The concert began with an attractive oddity, the “Fantasy Allegro” for timpani and orchestra by Orange County composer Randall Woltz. A brief, rhythmic, thoroughly tonal work (Vaughan Williams seems the most apparent influence), the “Fantasy Allegro” provides a timpanist--in this case, Kent Hannibal--with some modest, though flashy, exploits. The orchestra and soloist played it with polish.