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Music Reviews : Youth Is Served in Finale : The O.C. Chamber Orchestra’s program includes child performers Nomi and Arthur Abadi playing concertos by the young Mozart.

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

The 11th-season finale of the Orange County Chamber Orchestra was something of a kiddie show, featuring music of the young Mozart and even younger performers.

The concert, held Sunday afternoon at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, focused on the piano concertos of the composer, with some rarely heard tidbits from his teen-age years (or earlier, depending on whom you believe), and a masterwork from his 28th.

Mozart was just cutting his teeth on the piano-concerto form when he set the three concertos of K. 107 down on paper, actually just “primitive” (the word is Alfred Einstein’s) reworkings of sonatas by J.C. Bach.

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It seemed entirely appropriate--or at least effective--for music director Micah Levy to have 6-year-old Nomi Abadi on hand (with seat cushion and pedal extension) to play the third of these simple concertos, and she dispatched it capably.

Her 9-year-old brother, Arthur, followed with the Rondo, K. 382--a piece that represents “the first instance of Mozart having to write down to the taste of the Vienna public” (Einstein again)--and Mozart’s first independent piano concerto, No. 5, K. 175.

Mozart wrote both works as virtuoso vehicles for himself, and Arthur Abadi was very much up to their demands. The basic accompaniments were basically adequate.

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The first half of the concert coupled mature performer with mature work, with William Wolfram--bronze medalist in a recent International Tchaikovsky Competition, winner of the William Kapell--playing the Piano Concerto in G, K. 453. Wolfram proved a model Mozartean, glowing and singing in melody, vibrant in rhythm and knowing in inflection of the dramatic line.

He kept his interpretation small-scale, nicely gauged to the tiny forces at Levy’s command (a violin section of six), which, despite sounding thin at times, turned in a polished and spirited accompaniment.

The concert opened out of left field, with unprogrammed Liszt encores first , fluent, resplendent readings by Wolfram of the “Sonetto del Petrarca,” No. 104, and the Second Hungarian Rhapsody.

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