Not Just the Usual Copland

It’s not just a Copland year, it’s a Copland month. Here in Southern California, the late American composer’s 100th birthday, Nov. 14, is remembered with numerous programs of his music, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s first observance taking place this weekend in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Thursday night, the orchestra’s associate conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, in the first of two major appearances with the orchestra this season, was on the podium; he will lead the repeats, tonight and Sunday afternoon.

Marilyn Horne, scheduled to sing five of the 10 “Old American Songs” on this program, was indisposed for the first performance and has since canceled her participation in the remaining ones. In her place, American baritone Grant Youngblood, who was to have made his Philharmonic debut in the same assignment at the community concert in East Los Angeles Friday afternoon, was soloist Thursday.

One might think an Aaron Copland program would recycle the composer’s most famous and familiar works. This one avoided such predictability, though it ended with the “Old American Songs” and the ubiquitous but glorious Suite from the ballet “Appalachian Spring.” Yet Harth-Bedoya and his colleagues began in more unlikely territory, with the fanfare-like Symphonic Ode written in 1927 and revised in the 1950s, and the highly accessible “Music for Movies,” a suite of five excerpts the composer put together in 1942.

The Symphonic Ode, so-called because it is aggressive, upbeat and festive, may be long-winded, but it is still vintage Copland in its musical Americanisms: tuneful, inspiring, optimistic. The conductor probed its contents with his usual authority, and the orchestra played brightly and with tight balances.

The musicians achieved similar brilliance as well as touching quiet effects in the familiar ballet suite from “Appalachian Spring,” an acknowledged and iconic masterpiece here handsomely clarified and reconsidered. They play exuberantly for Harth-Bedoya.

Baritone Youngblood, a young singer from North Carolina with a growing list of symphonic and operatic credits, made the most of his opportunities in Copland’s popular song-arrangements. He possesses a healthy, medium-size voice he uses without strain or affectation; he pronounces and delivers words carefully and affectionately, and underlines humorous effects without overstatement. From here, his career seems as assured as he is. Harth-Bedoya & Co. gave him solid support.

* The L.A. Philharmonic, with conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and baritone soloist Grant Youngblood, repeats this program tonight at 8 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. $10-$70. (323) 850-2000. Also Sunday at 2:30 p.m.