San Diego Spotlight : Amos Selected to Conduct Lithuanian Philharmonic

Globe-trotting San Diego conductor David Amos has been invited to conduct the Lithuanian National Philharmonic April 10-12 in the newly independent Republic of Lithuania. Over the last few years, Amos, who is known locally as the music director of the Jewish Community Center Orchestra, has traveled to England, Poland and Israel to make recordings of unusual 20th-Century music. Last year, seven of Amos’ compact disc recordings were released, and the prolific conductor was profiled in Fanfare, a periodical for classical record collectors.

“The Lithuanian invitation came out of the blue over the fax one day,” Amos said. “I had had no previous contact with the Lithuanian orchestra, but I do know that my recordings on the Koch International and Harmonia Mundi labels are played with some frequency in Europe.”

Although the Lithuanians requested standard repertory for half of the concert--Schumann’s Third Symphony and Liszt’s First Piano Concerto--Amos was invited to include two works by American composers. Amos chose Paul Creston’s Danse Overture--Creston retired to San Diego in 1975 and lived here until his death 10 years later--and Norman Dello Joio’s Variations, Chaconne and Fugue. According to Amos, the political changes of the last two years have whetted the appetites of musicians in Eastern Europe for American music.

“Although they did ask me not to bring any Gershwin, because his music is played all the time there. They wanted something fresh.”

Following his concerts in Vilnius and Kaunas, Amos will record the Creston and Dello Joio pieces with the Lithuanian Philharmonic. Gian Carlo Menotti’s Cantilena and Scherzo as well as Ernest Bloch’s “Evocations” will complete the recording with the Lithuanian Philharmonic.

Amos is unapologetic in his advocacy of accessible American composers such as Creston and Dello Joio. In the September-October issue of the American Record Guide, Amos’ choice of composers for the three-volume “Modern Masters” series recorded for Harmonia Mundi was praised by a sympathetic reviewer who chided the snobbish tastes of most of Amos’ colleagues.

“Those conductors who, when conscience says ‘contemporary’ pass by the good stuff and reach for the poison.”

Later this month, Amos will record Santa Barbara composer John Biggs’ “Songs of Laughter, Love and Tears” with tenor Jonathan Mack and a Los Angeles studio orchestra. Amos’ Feb. 23 concert with his J.C.C. Orchestra at the Coronado High School Auditorium will include Creston’s Marimba Concertino with Deborah Schwartz as soloist.

The Russians are coming. The Moscow Philharmonic will end its 30-day North American tour with a concert on April 12 at Copley Symphony Hall. Jansoug Kakhidze, the Soviet Georgian conductor who has visited San Diego many times since his local debut during the 1988 Soviet Arts Festival, will lead the Moscow Philharmonic in its single San Diego appearance. According to the management of the San Diego Symphony, which is sponsoring the concert, Moscow’s program has not been announced. Tickets from $14.75 to $38.75 are available at the symphony hall box office or by phone: 699-4205 and 278-TIXS.

Kakhidze will return to the local podium May 7 and 8 to lead the San Diego Symphony in a program of Dvorak, Bruch and contemporary Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin. In his appearances with San Diego Opera (the 1988 “Boris Godunov” production) and the local orchestra, Kakhidze has proven to be a formidable, insightful interpreter of 19th- and 20th-Century repertory.

Competition Winner. Pianist Nathaniel Moore, an 18-year-old student at Poway High School, won the San Diego Symphony Young Artists Concerto Competition held Jan. 18-19 at Copley Symphony Hall. A pupil of Jane Smisor Bastien, Moore placed second in the same competition last year. In addition to a $500 cash prize, Moore will perform with the San Diego Symphony in young peoples’ concerts on Feb. 19 and 20 at Copley Symphony Hall, as well as the March 22 family concert.

Among his previous competition awards, Moore placed first in the La Jolla Civic-University Symphony Young Artists Concerto Competition in February, 1991. In addition to his keyboard training, Moore sang with the St. Paul’s Cathedral Choristers and plays bass trombone with Poway High School’s marching band, wind symphony and jazz band.

Krenek memorial. A memorial for Austrian-American composer Ernst Krenek, who died at age 91 on Dec. 22 in Palm Springs, will be held in the UC San Diego Mandeville Recital Hall Feb. 9 at 3 p.m. Members of the UCSD music faculty will perform several Krenek works. Speakers will be Krenek biographer John Stewart and Krenek bibliographer Garrett Bowles, who is also UCSD’s music librarian.

Although Krenek’s sole official tie with UCSD was as Regents Lecturer in 1974, he has had an informal association with the UCSD music department since its beginning 25 years ago. The first music faculty hired by then Muir College provost Stewart were two of Krenek’s proteges, Wilbur Ogden and Robert Erickson. Over the years, the music department has presented numerous programs featuring Krenek’s music. (Several years ago, a UCSD professor humorously complained that she was “Kreneked-out” by the intensive attention to Krenek’s music.)

The UCSD library maintains the Ernst Krenek Archive, which contains all the composer’s personal and professional papers from 1937-1991. The university also publishes the Krenek Newsletter, a scholarly journal devoted to the composer and his oeuvre.

Lionized early in his European career, Krenek settled into respectable obscurity in the U.S. After teaching at Minnesota’s Hamline College in the 1940s, he moved to the West Coast and settled in Palm Springs. Krenek’s widow, Gladys Nordestrom Krenek, also a composer, will attend the UCSD memorial service.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

FREE RECITAL BY LEADING VIOLIST

Cynthia Phelps, one of the country’s premier violists, will perform a free noontime recital Monday in Horton Plaza’s Lyceum Theatre. Known locally for her performances with the San Diego Mainly Mozart Festival and La Jolla SummerFest, Phelps has just been appointed principal violist to the New York Philharmonic. Accompanied by pianist Karen Follingstad, Phelps will play works by Schubert, Mozart, and Alan Shulman.