Chamber Orchestra of South Bay Delivers a Masterful Concert

One of the better-kept local secrets, the 16-year-old Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay continues to uphold high standards in both performance and programming. Under music director Frances Steiner, the ensemble’s final offering of 1999, Sunday night at Norris Theater in Palos Verdes, met and even surpassed those standards in exciting and admirable ways.

Steiner’s program ended with the little-heard Violin Concerto of Samuel Barber, played with the beautiful tone, virtuosic panache and probing musicality of Martin Chalifour, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s principal concertmaster and a conquering local hero since 1995.

Passionately and eloquently, Chalifour, assisted with wholehearted rapport by conductor Steiner and the 34-member orchestra, laid out the neo-Romantic but brightly inventive concerto in the clearest terms. He underlined its gorgeous long lines and ascended its emotional peaks with poise and all the technical mastery the work requires. Deservedly, the soloist earned cheers at the conclusion.

Before intermission, Chalifour revived another worthy solo piece, Dvorak’s Romance in F minor, a feast of melody he played elegantly, supported tightly by the orchestra.

The rest of the program was cannily complementary. It included a pristine reading of Mendelssohn’s “Fair Melusine” Overture. And it began with a solid, buoyant and transparent performance of Bach’s First “Brandenburg” Concerto, one that surpassed in consistency and transparency the one we heard two weeks ago by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Here, conductor Steiner made everything--balances, clarity and stylishness--work. Among the outstanding soloists were oboist Joe Stone, who also distinguished himself in the Barber concerto, and hornists Phillip Yao and Teag Reaves.