Beach Cities Symphony Tackles Beethoven

The Los Angeles area is rich in community orchestras of ambition and achievement. The Beach Cities Symphony, for example, opened its 50th season Friday before a nearly full house at Marsee Auditorium of El Camino College, with one of music’s highest affirmations of forward-looking hope, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

This orchestra has certainly persevered successfully, growing from its original 20 members playing in high school auditoriums to its current complement of 70, including two charter members. Most seem to be amateurs drawn from the community, with only a handful of professionals in principal positions. Each season the orchestra gives four free concerts of challenging scope: Coming programs include major works by Sibelius and Shostakovich, and the world premiere of a piano concerto composed by a member of the orchestra.

The ensemble’s playing Friday was brave and conscientious, if struggling even at conductor Barry Brisk’s considerate tempos. Brisk, the orchestra’s eighth music director, drew a viable outline of the work, though his most detailed efforts were devoted to shepherding straying players back onto the ensemble road.

A musically well-drilled, vocally modest chorus carried the “Ode to Joy” finale. Prepared by Leslie Back and Joanna Nachef, the chorus enlisted members of four campus vocal ensembles to enthusiastic effect.

The professional solo quartet matched relatively youthful voices with veterans, jelling in the final ensemble. Roger Quadhamer, dean of fine arts at El Camino, was the faded baritone and Charles Dickerson the bright, thin tenor. With not much to do, soprano Shana Blake Hill brought the most voice to the stage, and Nina Hinson was the usual inconspicuous mezzo.