Music : Accademia Filarmonica in an Energetic Debut

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the debut concert of the Accademia Filarmonica Saturday night was that Judith Aller conducted without falling over.

She flailed about like a woman possessed, jumping from one end of the podium to the other, arms shot high above her head then down below her knees, her entire torso keeping time, baton shaking frantically, knees gyrating, feet stomping. She makes the late Leonard Bernstein look relatively stoic in comparison.

Beat patterns did not concern her. Neither especially did cues. All was wild exhortation, an attempt to intensify every last note of music. How the orchestra followed her was a wonder in itself--not that it did so with any special neatness or subtlety.

Still, this untidy event was not without merit. For the concert in Thorne Hall at Occidental College, Aller had assembled a solid bunch of local free-lancers. They played some of the time quite well, most of the time sloppily though securely on an individual level, and almost all of the time with an unusually high degree of energy. Give Aller that much credit.

Shostakovich’s Two Pieces for String Octet (with an added bass part, courtesy Aller) raced maniacally.

The first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 proved quick, alert and crisply played. The other music on the concert--including the rest of the Mozart, some Bartok arranged by Aller, a short fugue by her, and Villa Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasileiras” No. 5 sung not unpleasantly by soprano Esther Martinez--proved less compelling, mostly more messy, but never without spirit and drive.

Aller says she intends for this “performing and teaching” ensemble to be an ongoing concern. She might want to learn not only how to calm down while conducting, but the rudiments of that craft as well.