Music and Dance Reviews : Maria Newman Dominates Viklarbo Series

On paper it looked like nothing more or less than another installment of special-interest concerts--this one featuring women composers--others in the series being black, Latino and Asian.

But after the final tally Wednesday at Loyola Marymount University, it became clear that the Viklarbo Chamber Ensemble had isolated not a minority so much as a single performer/composer: Maria Newman, daughter of the late Alfred Newman. As the group’s violinist, she played in five of the six program items and contributed half of them.

Never mind that Augusta Read Thomas, a much-awarded 26-year-old, was the designated guest. Her piece, “Aria,” a mournful paean for violin, and Shulamit Ran’s “Private Game,” an aggressive romp for clarinet and cello, ran about 5 minutes each.

The bulk of the evening consisted of Newman’s lengthy outpourings using the narrative-cum-instrumental format--a variation of her film-composer father’s craft.

Had she recognized that less is more, Newman would have stopped after “The Selfish Giant,” a solo for herself and speaker George Thatcher, with text by Oscar Wilde. Markedly remindful of “L’Histoire du Soldat” but not so inventive, the half-hour piece had its appeal.

But overloading the program with a similar one, “The Toy Princess,” merely pointed up the composer’s limitations. Scored for violin, clarinet (Jeff Elmassian), piano (Wendy Prober) and cello (Sebastian Toettcher), it left great stretches of idleness for the instrumentalists who, when they played, did so in duos or solos.

Newman also played the piano accompaniment for her song “Gold-Star Mother to God,” sung by Anna Kerkorian.

Under the circumstances, one had to be grateful for Clara Schumann’s Trio, its unabashed romanticism given a songful, ardent, fluid and purposeful account by an ensemble hungry for material and in search of program design.