Harmonic Convergence : New West opens season with blend of Brahms, Beethoven and Biggs.

A slightly unusual, and telling, complement of three Bs marked the New West Symphony’s kickoff program last weekend. At the opener at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza (repeated at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center the following night), we heard the weighty--but not too weighty--stuff of Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto and the orchestral showcase of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.

To open, the concert featured another of several pieces commissioned from Ventura county’s own “B,” composer John Biggs. It was a Biggs composition that opened the first official season of the New West Symphony, and the Biggs-penned kicker for this, its fifth season, was a charming lark called “Sousaphernalia.”

As the title suggests, John Philip Sousa is the source to reckon with in Biggs’ reworking of existing themes. Familiar fragments of “Stars and Stripes Forever” and other Sousa tunes are stitched in a kindly, sweet way. We don’t hear the kind of radical, polytonal clashing found in the music of that great American composer Charles Ives, also obsessed with march music and other forms indigenous to this country.

Biggs describes “Sousaphernalia” as a consideration of the American musical century on its way out, and his creation is filled with hope and wistful reflection of tunes gone by.

His approach is less about deconstructionist cleverness or vernacular cross-talk than an admiring survey, a tapestry of color and warmth.

Veteran pianist Paul Badura-Skoda delved into the Brahms compellingly and found a close relationship with the orchestra, under founding maestro Boris Brott.

Badura-Skoda mustered an urgency over a bed of calm in the faster movements and a dreamy hush in the andante, with its lyrical cello solo by Cecilia Tsan. A few rough moments and pianistic slips notwithstanding, Badura-Skoda brought something deeper than slick perfection to his reading: the sound of a musician who understood the spirit of the work.

For the orchestral showpiece of the evening, the second half of the concert was given over to Beethoven’s blithe Seventh Symphony. Under Brott’s guidance, it was played with an assurance that boded well for the ongoing artistic evolution of this grand orchestra, born locally but with ambitions extending beyond the local level.

Musical Visitors and the Home Team: The Ventura County Master Chorale will kick off its concert season Sunday with a special event at the San Buenaventura Mission.

The chorale will join forces with one of the West Coast’s most-respected chamber music groups, Pasadena-based Southwest Chamber Music, for an all-Schubert affair featuring the familiar masterworks the Trout Quintet and the Mass in C. Also on the program are “Salve Regina” and “Ave Maria,” for strings and soprano (Port Hueneme-based Jill Guth).

It promises to be a fine, focused musical evening in a beautiful and reverent space. Schubert lovers and others are encouraged to check it out.

In other chamber music news this Sunday, the piano duo of Gerbert and Gregory will perform in the Forum Theater of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, another acoustically inviting and pleasantly ambient performance space in the county. Tachell Gerbert and Bradley Gregory met while at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and have gone on to make a respectable name for themselves in the specialized ranks of piano duos.

In Thousand Oaks, they’ll perform music by Mozart, Brahms and Spanish composer Manuel Infante. For modern measure, they’ll also perform John Corigliano’s 1959 two-piano piece, “Kaleidoscope.”

DETAILS

Ventura County Master Chorale and Southwest Chamber Music in an all-Schubert program at 7 p.m. Sunday at the San Buenaventura Mission. Tickets are $15 and $18; 653-7282.

Gerbert and Gregory Piano Duo at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Forum Theater of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd. in Thousand Oaks. Tickets are $15 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors; 449-ARTS.

Daily Jazz: The Daily Grind’s policy of hosting adventurous jazz players from down south continues this Saturday, when trumpeter Dave Scott leads a chordless (and cordless) trio in a show. Joining Scott will be tenor saxophonist Tony Mallaby and drummer Billy Mintz, the unique stylist who has appeared several times in Ventura in the last year. The leaning: free improv and otherwise experimental directions. The cost: free. There’s some poetic justice in that equation.

DETAILS

Dave Scott Trio at the Daily Grind at 9 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free; 641-1679.

Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at joeinfo@aol.com.