The Pacific Symphony is led astray

Oceanic isn’t the first word that comes to mind when thinking about the rhythmically incisive music of Spain. But so wandering was the beat of conductor Angel Gil-Ordonez when he guest conducted the Pacific Symphony on Thursday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center that the term was inevitable.

A student of mystic-minded Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache, Gil-Ordonez bobbed and bounced and used the same size and kind of floating gestures for loud, soft, lyric and rhythmic passages. The harsh, loud results in the Orgia, one of three movements from Turnia’s “Danzas Fantasticas,” Gerhard’s Alegrias and the Suite No. 2 from Falla’s “The Three-Cornered Hat” were not surprising. The real surprise was how the orchestra could follow him as well as it did.

Things went better after intermission, with the appearance of San Francisco Bay Area guitarist Jason McGuire (“El Rubio”) and vocalist Jose Manuel Blanco (“El Grillo”), offering flamenco pieces meant to show Falla’s traditional roots, but any direct quotations weren’t obvious. Still the artistry of the two men -- McGuire is a virtuoso guitarist and Blanco an expressive singer -- proved completely rewarding on its own.

The two were substituting for Spanish flamenco singer Ginesa Ortega and guitarist Chicuela, who could not get U.S. visas in time, despite the orchestra paying an expediting fee, according to Pacific Symphony President John Forsyte.

Similarly, Oregon-based mezzo-soprano Milargo Vargas stepped in for Ortega as the effective vocalist in Falla’s “El Amor Brujo,” which closed the concert. Except for Gil-Ordonez’s penchant for glacially slow tempos, the one-act ballet emerged with more precision, subtlety and sense of dramatic atmosphere than anything else on the program.