MUSIC REVIEW : Well-Meaning, but Apathetic Show at USD : Concert: Passionless tribute to American music redeemed by Lukas Foss’ ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.’

Thursday’s eclectic concert of American music at the University of San Diego’s Camino Theatre treated the subject like a proud parent pulling out family photos old and new.

Unfortunately, some of the older images had faded, and the glossy new photos of the youngest family additions were not all in sharp focus. But, because promoting American music is such a worthy cause, perhaps no one was supposed to have the bad manners to notice the imperfections.

USD faculty member Lily Hood Gunn organized the Americana tribute and conducted the two pickup ensembles that performed Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and closed with “Appalachian Spring” in the original 13-piece version. Besides these familiar icons, neither performed with much style or insight, two offerings appealed to the cognoscenti and another two offered pure nostalgia.

David Ward-Steinman’s compact, single-movement “Cinnabar” for viola and piano rippled with dense counterpoint and pulsing motoric rhythms. In this carefully plotted study, the piano, played by Ward-Steinman, a resident composer at San Diego State University, shimmered with glissandi and percussive noises plucked from the open piano strings. The slender viola line, executed by Karen Elaine, seemed but an extension of the keyboard texture. For all of its energy, “Cinnabar” sounded undeveloped, more like a sketch for a viola sonata than a complete work.

Lukas Foss’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” felicitously wrapped humor and pathos in a witty song cycle for soprano, flute and prepared piano. Kitty Pappas brought the right degree of stylized declamation to Foss’ angular vocal themes, and flutist Ellen Waterman provided deft wailings that commented sarcastically on the text. Linda Scott and Sigmund Rothschild turned the topless piano into a percussion section that sounded at times like a cimbalom or zither.

In the genre of chamber song cycle, Foss’ “Blackbird” is a worthy successor to Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire.” The composer, in town to conduct the San Diego Symphony this weekend, was present for the performance.

Flutist Beth Ross-Buckley brought her silvery tone and limpid phrasing to Howard Hanson’s Serenade, a Romantic confection that recalled the era when talented young people played their latest recital piece in the drawing room for adoring relatives.

Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” the classic nostalgia trip, loses much of its persuasion in the piano reduction. Soprano Ann Chase and accompanist Ward-Steinman gave the Barber a particularly deliberate, short-phrased and undramatic cast. The duo had all the notes in their proper places but took few emotional risks.

American music, like all music, deserves more thoroughly rehearsed and more passionate performances than this well-intentioned evening.