San Diego Spotlight : Talmi Becomes a Favorite With Norway’s Orchestras

These days, when San Diego Symphony music director Yoav Talmi is not in town leading the local orchestra, he can be found most frequently guest conducting in Norway. Though the Israeli maestro’s schedule regularly takes him across Europe, he has struck a special chord with Norwegian orchestras and audiences. Earlier this season, for example, he led the Oslo Philharmonic in Brahms’ “A German Requiem” to great acclaim in the Oslo press.

Last week, Talmi conducted the final concert of the Bergen Festival, and, before the summer season closes, he will appear with the Oslo Philharmonic and twice with the Trondheim Symphony. Talmi has become a particular favorite with the Oslo Philharmonic, with whom he has made two recordings; from Aug. 17-21, Talmi will lead the winners of the Queen Sonja International Piano Competition in concert with the Oslo orchestra. The competition, which is held every three years, enjoys the patronage of Norway’s reigning Queen Sonja.

“Most of the time, Mariss Jansons, music director of the Oslo Philharmonic, conducts this concert, but this year he simply couldn’t do it. Since no other conductor does as much conducting with the Oslo Philharmonic, they invited me, and I agreed with pleasure,” said Talmi in an interview at Copley Symphony Hall after the local season ended in mid-May. Talmi’s only reservation about the competition concert, which carries great prestige in Norway and is broadcast throughout Scandinavia, is that he will have to prepare about 25 piano concertos.

“Not until the day before the final concert, when they decide who the competition finalists will be, will I know which concertos will actually be played. Of the piano concertos they supplied me, I have conducted all at some time in the past, but a few of them are really difficult to prepare in a single day.”

Talmi’s wife, Er’Ella, will join him later this month at the Trondheim Festival, where she will teach flute and perform, and he will conduct. (As reported earlier in this column, Er’Ella Talmi will make her local orchestral debut next season with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra.)

Though Talmi is not involved in the San Diego Symphony’s summer programming, he will be in the United States next month for a week of conducting at New Jersey’s Waterloo music festival.

Since he became San Diego’s music director two years ago, Talmi’s conducting profile has been elevated significantly.

“This last year was a full schedule for me, and next year is the fullest that I’ve had in my 49 years of existence.”

Talmi’s debuts next season include appearances with Rome’s oft-recorded Santa Cecilia Orchestra and the Italian Radio Orchestra Roma, as well as Madrid’s Radio-Television Orchestra.

Not everything has unfolded according to Talmi’s plans, however. Last year, when the orchestra released its inaugural classical compact disc recording, Reinhold Gliere’s Third Symphony, the symphony hoped the music world would stand up and take notice. Despite a couple of favorable reviews, the recording was unexpectedly eclipsed by two European recordings of the neglected orchestral work.

“Suddenly--a few weeks after ours appeared--we were impaired by two new recordings of the Gliere. It was uncanny. No one had touched that symphony since the old LPs of Eugene Ormandy and Leopold Stokoski.”

The San Diego Symphony’s next recording for Pro Arte, three Brahms transcriptions, is due to be released in October.

Talmi is more optimistic about the reception for this recording.

Deep in the heart of Texas. Frank Almond, 28, will join the Ft. Worth Symphony as concertmaster next season. The former San Diego violinist, who turned heads as one of the finalists in Moscow’s 1986 Tchaikovsky competition, will also become adjunct professor at Ft. Worth’s Texas Christian University.

Though Almond has lived in New York since his student days at Juilliard, he was a visiting professor at San Diego State University until last year’s across-the-board budget cuts as SDSU eliminated all such positions.

Almond’s last performance in San Diego was in March at the College Avenue Baptist Church, and he will tour this summer as soloist with the San Diego Youth Symphony.

Proof of the pudding. Eileen Moss will conduct the 60-voice Youth Master Chorale in concert Saturday at 7 p.m. at O’Farrell Middle School. Moss started the choir two years ago after a visit by the Harlem Boys Choir here inspired community leaders to form a group of similar standards.

Moss’ young singers, ages 9-17, rehearse twice weekly at O’Farrell. A strict disciplinarian, Moss makes certain her charges learn theory as well as their vocal parts. Saturday’s program will include works by Britten, Ellington and Praetorius, as well as spirituals and Mexican folk songs.

The comic muse. San Diego Comic Opera will offer its most varied season to date for 1992-93, according to general director Leon Natker. Johann Strauss’ “The Gypsy Baron” with local soprano Sylvia Wen will open the four-opera season. Strauss’ evergreen operetta will be the company’s sole fall production, running from Sept. 25 to Oct. 4. The two spring offerings pair George and Ira Gershwin’s “Lady Be Good,” March 26-April 4, with Jacques Offenbach’s opera bouffe “La Perichole,” June 18-27. The season closes with Gilbert and Sullivan’s nautical fantasy “Pirates of Penzance,” Sept. 24, 1993 to Oct. 3, 1993.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

TRIBUTE TO DARIUS MILHAUD

Though Darius Milhaud was a fine composer, he was, alas, no Mozart. Not surprisingly, the centennial of Milhaud’s birth (b. Aix-en-Provence, 1892) has gone almost unnoticed.

Fortunately, local singers Ellen Lawson, Philip Larson and Kathleen Stark will pay homage to the French composer in a concert of French vocal music at 4 p.m. Saturday in the cathedral church of St. Paul at 5th and Nutmeg. Sponsored by the Alliance Francaise de San Diego, the musical program will include songs and opera arias by Milhaud, Bizet, Faure and Saint-Saens. French jazz pianist Jean-Pierre Bertrand will accompany the singers.