MUSIC REVIEW : Brott Opens Ventura County Symphony Season

“Boris is Here!” read the marquee outside Oxnard Civic Auditorium on Saturday night. But it wasn’t the famous cartoon character from “Rocky & Bullwinkle” who was being welcomed. It was Boris Brott, in his first appearance as new music director of the Ventura County Symphony.

The 48-year-old, boyish-looking Brott, one of Canada’s most active musicians, was not the Symphony’s only new addition. Counteracting the muffling effect of the stage’s overhang, the first three rows of seats in the auditorium have been removed and the orchestra accordingly thrust out toward the audience.

In addition to the bolder, brighter sound, the new configuration also made lighting and visual effects possible on the wall behind the orchestra--such “thrilling new concepts,” wrote Brott in the program notes, “as video projections of the conductor as seen by the orchestra or the hands of the solo pianist projected 20-feet wide across the rear screen.”

Whether such possibilities, or the introductions Brott gave before each work, are really necessary to entertain the audience, the evidence of the first night was that Brott and his fine orchestra can deliver the musical goods.

After conducting “The Star-Spangled Banner”--with the American flag projected on the rear screen--Brott gave a performance of the Prelude to Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger,” which was a perfect indication of how the evening would proceed. Tempos were safe, phrasing warm and mood shifts and speed changes unusually convincing.

The 1919 suite from Stravinsky’s “Firebird” (flames on the projection screen) was even more impressive, the woodwinds and brass achieving near-perfect intonation and ensemble, the strings playing effectively within their modest means.

On the podium, Brott gestured economically, observing as much as he demanded, and achieved his ends so naturally that the impressive musical responses he drew from the orchestra seemed to come organically from within rather than as a result of his demands.

After intermission, the “Nuages” and “Fetes” movements from Debussy’s “Nocturnes” (clouds on the screen) and Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” (pines, it seemed, on the screen) also offered satisfying, occasionally exhilarating music making.

After the triumphant conclusion of the Respighi, the full house of 1,500 gave the orchestra a standing ovation and were rewarded with an encore of the “Air” from Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite.

The projection gimmicks and Brott’s toastmasterish comments from the podium aside, the impressive music making Saturday night bodes well for the season’s remaining five concerts.