By Scott MacClelland

Thirty-four musicians from Youth Music Monterey’s Honor Orchestra stuffed themselves into the Monterey Symphony on the Sunset Center stage Sunday afternoon—all graciously honored by conductor Max Bragado and his orchestra—for a spectacular reading of Maurice Ravel’s Alborada del Gracioso. Inexplicably, this sensational orchestral showpiece, Ravel’s homage to Emanuel Chabrier’s España, written a generation earlier, drew only modest applause from the full-house audience. Maybe it’s the sign of the times. Maybe audiences are actually getting younger, or at least represent a younger generation, one that isn’t so familiar with Ravel’s huge contribution to the 20th century orchestral canon.

Next came the West Coast premiere of Christian Lindberg’s trombone concerto, Chick-a-Bone Checkout, composed for the Chicago Symphony’s trombone ‘god’ Charlie Vernon (pictured), irreplaceable in the part and glorious in all white, including hat, on stage with his three gleaming trombones ready for action. Meanwhile, the Symphony’s resident musicologist Todd Samra’s program notes shed no light on Lindberg’s Chicago Symphony commission—the one piece on the program that really needed it—not its creative impulse, technical components nor historic realization. Instead it spun the same lazy generalities and platitudes we have long endured among too many of the local print media. (Samra’s additional commentary from the stage during the lengthy stage set-up added nothing more; he recited Carl Sandburg’s poem Chicago, a putative inspiration, which had already been printed in the program handout.) At least a sequence of programmatic events on the program listing page suggested a road map to the piece. But you had to go to Daniel Wakin, writing in the New York Times, to discover, along with other relevant details, the whimsical origin of the title: Chica (Chicago) Bone (trombone) Check [it] out (Vernon’s invitation to the uninitiated.)

Fortunately, the piece itself was far more substantive, 23 minutes long starting with a staccato stutter on the trombone to an accompaniment of wood blocks. A virtuosic skirmish ensued, with Vernon buzzing the lowest possible tones on the ‘bass’ among his instruments. In quieter moments, three handheld drums whispered encouragement to Vernon’s solos. Suddenly two orchestra trombonists rose and joined the soloist in a seductive trio of welcome chords. Once again, Vernon took the spotlight for more displays of his unique “chops.” By and by the mood grew romantic with a love song soaring over a bed of warm strings. The flavors continued to etch and develop differing impressions of the Windy City. Shortly before the final flourish, the staccato stuttering and wood blocks returned. Overall most of the orchestral energy emanated from the brass and percussion, with woodwinds adding their own color-commentary, while the strings were entrusted with a more passive presence. Whether the piece enters the popular concert repertory is anybody’s guess, but Vernon’s performance brought the house to its feet. He returned the compliment with a long solo on George Bassman’s I’m Getting Sentimental Over You, with its memorable but uniquely exotic melody.

After the interval, Bragado conducted Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and offered special thanks to some of the concertante soloists, especially flutist Dawn Walker who established the character for the whole piece with that mysterious tritone opening line. The orchestra sounded simultaneously rich yet delicate with full-bodied color saturation.

Gershwin’s fabulous An American in Paris got a stunning reading by Bragado and his band. Transparent sound shields were positioned in front of brass and percussion the better to protect the string players from explosive volleys, the very things that electrified the audience. There could be no question that this riotous tone poem of various moods, from blaring taxi horns to bits of quiet reflection with cameo solos to raucous Harlem dances, deserves its place of honor in the concert repertoire of both France and America, and anywhere else it lifts an audience to a standing ovation.

Even though this concert scored a big success, attendees will most likely be talking longest about Charlie Vernon. Still, any new piece needs another hearing. Fortunately, KUSP will broadcast the entire program on February 13, 2015, at 8pm. I plan to record the broadcast at home.

By Richard Lynde

High-energy pianist Adam Marks fairly crackled on the keys at his solo recital at Peace United Church of Santa Cruz on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 16, in the third event of this season’s Distinguished Artists Concert Series. Director John Orlando foretold this result by the 30ish artist who is also a skilled music educator and raconteur. Rather than playing from memory or using a big score, Marks’ dynamic presence on the bench was fortified with an iPad on the music rack, pages flipped via a pedal. This Silicon Valley conceit was actually a distraction to those of us who could see him staring ahead at the tiny space for so many notes. While the entire performance was brilliant, always technically and usually artistically, audience contact was diminished.

To be fair, Marks did say that this was his first “big piece” recital in a couple of years. At first, the sequence of play seemed odd: Beethoven, Prokofiev, JS Bach and contemporary American superstar Kevin Puts. However, there was good reason for the time-warp lineup, as Puts’ piece would confront the essence of each earlier work. Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 in C Sharp Minor from 1801, which he called a “Fantasy,” opens with a groundbreaking slow movement, later named “Moonlight” and now the best-known piano piece in the world. Marks played this Adagio with an effective uptick so as to avoid dragging. An overall excellence of architecture and sound made the very moon rise and fall effectively. The middle Allegretto, too often done as a weak minuet, Marks played as a joyous, forceful peasant dance, and the final Presto agitato was perfectly controlled fury.

Prokofiev’s difficult Sonata No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 29 from 1917 also was ‘a new sound for the times.’ Gone was the lush 19th century romanticism carried over by Rachmaninoff. Right away pianist Marks did a fine job in the playful and persuasive open Allegro, while the following Andante, the only unjelled section of the whole recital, was followed by an electric Allegro, played with great “brio” and “not lightly,” as the scored indicated, with melodies fleeting through arpeggiated chords and runs. Bang! was the huge ending that made the big Yamaha ring. (Like all who have played this amazing “power steering” instrument, Marks gave it heartfelt praise as a “privilege” to play upon.)

During his lifetime, Bach became the “human synthesizer” of Western music, best known for his religious works. But we heard his very secular and charming French Suite No. 5 in G Major, BWV 816, one of many. For its special sequence of Baroque dances Marks rightly played their repeats, emphasizing that “Dance repetition is how we move” through life. All had good tone and color as well as crystal-clear accuracy, starting with a Courante, as fast and light as a breeze; then a stately Sarabande, with many keyboard turns; a very French Gavotte; a quick and lively Bourée followed by a Loure with lots of quick runs; and a concluding jumping jack-flash Gigue at tremendous speed—a super conclusion to the pianist’s super technique.

Though hailing from the San Jose area originally, Adam Marks now resides in Brooklyn and teaches in New York, almost a neighbor to the 42-year-old Kevin Puts in Yonkers. Puts played solo in his own Piano Concerto in a past Cabrillo Festival. Last year his opera, Silent Night, won the Pulitzer Prize. On this recital, Puts’ Alternating Currents gave every consecutive measure a different beat, a truly live-wire electric feel, which Marks, in this his first public performance, plugged into effortlessly. L’energico (a little too fast), a funny takeoff on Bach, ends abruptly; Il Deliberato successfully confronts the slow Beethoven of the “Moonlight” sonata’s first movement; Electric (as in Walt Whitman’s poem “I sing the body electric”) exploded under Marks’ hands as a wild piece, “turned on” with huge staccatos, blended melodies and swift runs, Puts’ take off on Prokofiev’s own Toccata abounding in a truly electric rhythmic vitality. The audience gave a loud standing ovation during two curtain calls, hoping for an encore. There was none, as this unusual and largely successful program was self-contained.

Now a challenge to Adam Marks: come back next year and play this program without an iPad in place of the much desired audience connectivity. And plug in with your own hands an encore, both humorous and sublime, an invention that takes main themes from all four composers and fuses them into an electric eclectic original whose brilliance lights up an acoustic keyboard. Based on what we heard here, if anyone can pull this off, you can.