Chamber orchestra in, um, unique debut

Though purists might disagree, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with presenting a classical music concert made up of multimedia components in a nontraditional setting. New York’s Lincoln Center and Zankel Hall, respectively, have enjoyed success with chamber concerts in cabaret-style rooms and performances featuring original video art. Quality knows no boundaries; especially in today’s classical music business, it pays for audiences and artists to remain open.

Which is why Thursday’s inaugural concert of the Erato Philharmonia, a chamber ensemble led by young composer-conductor Peyman Farzinpour, was so disappointing. The setting, Hollywood’s Highlands nightclub, wasn’t cabaret-style but real-life club, meaning that hearing music over the roaring din of an adjoining restaurant proved terribly difficult and that you could be bumped against and spoken to in the middle of a work.

The concert also featured live painting by artist Joshua Elias, who set his easel up next to the stage and produced an abstract picture that had no apparent relevance to the music. And there was “video art” by Robert Drummond. Multiple monitors displayed distorted images of both Elias and the orchestra musicians, and at one point between musical selections, an image of Fidel Castro appeared to the accompaniment of electronica from the “Garden State” soundtrack.

It’s antithetical to the role of the critic as his subject’s champion to say negative things about a young artist’s attempt at doing something different. But this multimedia mishmash wasn’t just amateurish; it was pretentious.

Farzinpour hired the polished solo violinist Alyssa Park to play a heady solo work by the Italian serialist Luigi Dallapiccola and serve as concertmaster for music by Mozart and Bach/Webern and for a suite he wrote in 1996. The results were less than compelling, however -- especially when the flexible-sized group expanded to full chamber-orchestra size.

Farzinpour consistently offered hesitant musical leadership, and only when his talented first-chair players got into small groups to play Dallapiccola’s “Due Studi for violino e pianoforte” and “Piccola Musica Notturna,” the latter a lean, fluid modern suite, did they impress. Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor for String Orchestra and Webern’s analytic orchestration of the Ricercare from Bach’s “Musical Offering” lacked both togetherness and interpretative artistry.

In Bach’s F-minor keyboard concerto, Jenny Lin’s club-quality piano was miked so heavily that the effect was like listening to a student group play classical music in a mall. And Farzinpour’s atmospheric Five Pieces for Chamber Orchestra came off as derivative of the “New Vienna” serialists.

Bringing a multimedia classical music show into a mainstream nightclub is a bold act, and Farzinpour deserves kudos for his chutzpah. Next time, however, he should plan for more rehearsal time, less high-flown music, a quieter room without a live painter and a video presentation that adds only a qualitative and relevant element to the program.