MUSIC REVIEW : Institute Orchestra Opens Season

With the memory of its late co-founder Leonard Bernstein never far away, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute Orchestra began its 10th season Sunday--with a bang.

Midway through the second movement of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1, one of Royce Hall’s rear-stage ceiling lights exploded with a tremendous crash, narrowly missing timpanist John Burgardt. Luckily, the only casualties were two ruptured timpani heads.

After the explosion, cellist (and Institute artistic director) Lynn Harrell’s tone became firmer, his phrasing more intense the second time through, leading to an agonizingly fierce rendition of the cadenza. Institute Conducting Fellow William Eddins led a cautious yet solid accompaniment.

Bernstein’s own personal example in his final years could be felt everywhere in the Three Dance Episodes from “On the Town”--from the broader tempos that many follow nowadays to the flamboyant gestures of Conducting Fellow Thomas Dausgaard.

Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra served as kind of an early mid-term exam for the young orchestra, which rattled through with startling ease. Yet, conductor David Alan Miller seemed to be in a pensive frame of mind most of the way, smoothing away the biting edges and downplaying humor until the finale.