Asia America Symphony Offers Inspiration

Over the years, the Asia America Symphony (formerly the Japan America Symphony) and conductor Heiichiro Ohyama have given us a number of memorable performances of the standard repertory. Routine doesn’t seem to have dampened this part-time ensemble and music director, who gave fewer than half a dozen concerts this season.

Thursday, at the James Armstrong Theater in Torrance, they did it again, with an energetic, sensitive and heated performance of that perennial hit, Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony.

These musicians sounded genuinely excited by the work. The rhythms had pop and the phrases had shape and direction. Dynamic contrasts made dramatic points, and judicious balances lent a conversational ease and vital quickness to the instrumental interplay.

In the center movements--in many hands merely putt-putt intermezzos--Ohyama coaxed a fluent and large expressivity. To the outer movements--often just windy--he brought incisiveness, a gritty digging in.

Though there were brief disheveled patches, overall the performance sparkled on a technical level, clear, tonally warm and sure in intonation.

Jennifer Shizuka Frautschi joined the orchestra for Mozart’s First Violin Concerto and made a strong case for it. She plumbed its rococo charms, giving melodies weight by making them sing, searching lines for their peaks, valleys and recesses yet never making too much of things: Her playing remained crisp, aristocratic and audibly confident. She proved alive to the music’s bumptiousness and never played fast notes etude-like but gave them purpose, too. She’s a young soloist worth watching.

Ohyama and orchestra began with Takemitsu’s Three Film Scores for String Orchestra. Better known in this country for his concert works, Takemitsu was also a prolific film composer (providing music for 93 of them). This suite in contrasting styles--a dissonant but cool urban jazz, a Webernian expressionism, an opulent waltz--reiterated the eclectic mastery of the late composer.