Festival on the Green Launches Season With Salute to Americana

The Festival on the Green at the L.A. County Arboretum in Arcadia launched its fifth season Saturday night much in the way it began its fourth--with an “all-American” program obviously keyed toward the impending holiday. Well, almost all-American, for California Philharmonic conductor Victor Vener shoe-horned the finale of the Dvorak Violin Concerto--played with slashing precision by 14-year-old violinist Yumi Man--into the program with no apologies for its Czech origin and style.

But never mind; the evening was mostly an agreeable mix of full-length works interspersed with various squibs of Americana. At times, the experience was more than that--as, for example, the sublime moment when a flock of birds flew lazily over the lawn as the sun was setting on the concentrated, meditative opening bars of Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.”

Although Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” Overture emerged sluggishly, William Schuman’s “New England Triptych” has plenty of brassy brashness and decent neoclassical string playing. And Vener brought forth a trio of Leroy Anderson mini-masterpieces, not just the well-known “A Trumpeter’s Lullaby” and an oddball version of “Bugler’s Holiday” for trombones--sorry, guys, it sounds better with trumpets--but also “Bugler’s” delightful, rarely heard sequel, “Clarinet Candy.”