MUSIC REVIEWS : Pianist Feltsman Debuts With Embattled Conejo Symphony

The electronic marquis in front of the Probst Center for the Performing Arts in Thousand Oaks announced all that the community needed to know: the Conejo Symphony, Saturday, 8 p.m.

Perhaps it was understandable that Vladimir Feltsman, who, by the way, appeared at the same time and place, didn’t get his name up in lights. There’s a controversy brewing over this little 34-year-old community orchestra that soon, apparently, will be no more. Still, one felt like shaking a few people and saying, “Hey, this guy is famous!”

The former Russian, newly naturalized American pianist Feltsman-- you know who he is--looked a little embarrassed to be there. Though the surroundings were plush enough (the Probst Center is handsome and brand new), the orchestra is your basic model.

He showed some signs of impatience--squinting at a spotlight, waving off applause after the first movement--but Feltsman was on good behavior during his performance of the Schumann Concerto. He proved attentive to nuance and articulation and projected the bravura challenges neatly and crisply. If this most poetic of piano concertos emerged a bit prosy on this occasion, it was at least partially because his dance partner didn’t know the steps too well: conductor Elmer Ramsey and orchestra provided solid but Plain Jane accompaniment.

Ramsey, who steps down next month after 30 years as music director of the Conejo, also led decidedly straightforward, sturdily executed accounts of Schubert’s “Rosamunde” overture and Dvorak’s “New World” symphony. During the latter, a number of musicians wore white arm bands in protest over the orchestra’s imminent disbandment. On their car windshields after the concert, listeners found a letter from Ramsey explaining the firing of both the Conejo and Ventura symphonies, the re-auditioning of all the players and merger of the winners into the New West Symphony under Boris Brott, and what a bad idea Ramsey thought it was.