The Promise of Things to Come

Wilson Hermanto, the personable young conductor from Indonesia, led the final concert of his three seasons as music director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra on Sunday afternoon at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.

Now he moves on. That is what conductors of this marvelous training orchestra do. Hermanto, who next season becomes assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, is a proud addition to a 47-year-old list of YMF successes that includes Andre Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Lawrence Foster, Myung-Whun Chung and Neal Stulberg.

A conductor needs many attributes, some that can be learned, some that develop over time and some that are natural. Hermanto still has much to learn and discover, as he demonstrated in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony that had many fine and exciting moments but was not yet of a piece. Even so, his skill was obvious. He has a clear stick technique. He is a natural leader who generated confidence and enthusiasm from his players (ages 14 to 25). And he made the whole thing sound like he was having a lot of fun (grim symphony though it can be). It is a work for him to grow into, and Sunday there was plenty of evidence that he will.

But more impressive was what he, and an exceptional young pianist, Amir Khosrowpour, did with a far worse piece, Lowell Liebermann’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Growth wasn’t necessary to get to the bottom of this derivative score, which was written in 1992 by an American with a Rachmaninoff complex. But who cares that Liebermann’s thematic material sometimes sinks to the level of warmed-over wide-screen 1950s biblical epic accompaniment? For Hermanto and Khosrowpour, it was an occasion for joyous music making.

A word about Khosrowpour. He is from Irvine and is a junior at the University of Kansas. He does not yet know his way around the stage and seemed unsure about taking bows, deferring to conductor and orchestra. But he knows his way around the keyboard. The Liebermann concerto has a devilish solo part (although on a recording by British virtuoso Stephen Hough, for whom the work was written, the piano writing sounds slick as snake oil). Khosrowpour played it with irresistible verve, unpretentious directness and fingers of steel. I doubt that Kansas will be able to contain a talent of this size for long.

Hermanto was a great help as well. Liebermann’s most impressive technique is as a colorful orchestrator, and he provided the YMF with much opportunity to show off. Once again, these young players brought to the work a sparkling life missing from the hard-sell recording, with the BBC Scottish Symphony under the composer’s direction.

That kind of immediacy also made Schumann’s “Manfred” Overture and the Tchaikovsky Fourth winning. Hermanto is a propulsive interpreter with a flair for sharp rhythmic articulation and clear textures. He has a complementary lyrical sensibility. And while he did not connect all the points in Tchaikovsky and Schumann, both of whom are long-range composers, most of the key moments brought out the best in his orchestra.

Not everything, of course, was spot on, and by not taking the repeat of the exposition in the symphony’s first movement, Hermanto missed an opportunity to get the quiet opening in the strings right. He did take an unconventional repeat, however, that worked splendidly. He brought the symphony to a smashing close, and then, for an encore, he reprised the coda, faster. This was the sound of adrenaline rushing, and just the thing to propel this promising conductor to Cleveland and America’s best orchestra.