Kern Warms a Summer Night

Braving the elements of an outdoor venue to make a Southland debut may not have been the most auspicious of introductions. But the impressive pianist Olga Kern made the most of her solo spot in the Pacific Symphony Orchestra concert Saturday at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine. The 26-year-old Russian pianist, a co-winner of the gold medal in June’s Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (the first woman to win since 1969), took on “Rach 2” and sailed through it with taste and cool fire.

If Rachmaninoff’s fabled third concerto is a tour de force, his Concerto No. 2 in C minor is a challenge of a different, more delicate sort, whose familiar contours demand a keen ear and facile hands to enliven. Kern invested unstrained care and measured passion into the score and demonstrated the highly musical stuff that may well pave the way for a solid career. She appreciated the implications of space in the slow movement and the importance of restrained bravura in the finale.

Conductor Mark Mandarano, a clean and conscientious sort and normally the PSO’s assistant conductor, led the orchestra in able and sometimes inspired collaboration, but eyes and ears were generally on Kern, also cutting a lovely image in an elegant red gown. A brief encore, Mussorgsky’s “Hopak,” a twisted music-box etude, got a playful and intense reading.

Otherwise, the concert program was a pleasant box dinner of accessible 20th century goods, titled after Ravel’s “Bolero,” closing the evening with its by-now cliched exercise in slow-mo crescendo. Three Dances from Falla’s “Three-Cornered Hat” and Richard Strauss’ frothy-salty suite from “Der Rosenkavalier” fared better, on and off stage.

To be sure, acoustics here are spotty. It’s still summertime, though, and sonic sacrifices were compensated for by the friendly distractions of cricket song, train whistles in the distance, and an actual frog hopping in the aisle to the tune of Strauss. There’s a thrill you can’t buy, or plan for.