MUSIC REVIEW : Challenging Orchestral Fare

The Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra has a new conductor, Lara Webber, and their second concert together--Sunday afternoon at the Japan America Theatre--showed that good things are in progress.

The program was a challenging one for orchestra and conductor alike: “The Unanswered Question” by Ives, the First Cello Concerto by Shostakovich, the “Pastoral” Symphony by Beethoven.

Webber, a master’s student of Daniel Lewis at USC, showed confident, even authoritative, podium skills, leading performances orderly in design and execution, and unlabored in effect. That they didn’t reach the peaks of musical expression can only be expected from an orchestra and conductor so new to each other.

What Webber has already achieved, however, is considerable. She has her musicians playing well together, listening to one another, in tune and in control. They do not force their tones, and they showed a great sensitivity to dynamics, producing some especially impressive sounds in the softer levels.

The “Pastoral” Symphony emerged properly gentle and graceful, securely executed, with solid contributions from the solo woodwinds in general, and flutist Elizabeth Rowe and oboist Karen Wagner in particular. Webber drew some shining playing from her strings in the Ives, and gave its separate strands their due disparate characters.

Principal cellist Cameron Stone was called to solo in the Shostakovich concerto, and at first appeared vanquished by two strings that broke on separate occasions. After replacing them, he continued apparently unfazed.

Stone proved a focused, technically accomplished player, and it was--not surprising, considering his age--the romping, driving outer movements, rather than the brooding inner ones, that showed him at his vigorous, intense best. The orchestra supported neatly but sometimes a little too politely.