Thanks to the extraordinary genius and incredibly nimble fingers of super-pianist Mike Garson, all these composers and a few more were featured in a concert presented by the Contemporary Youth Orchestra last Saturday night at Waetjen Auditorium on the CSU campus. Founding music director Liza Grossman kept everything together and moving smoothly—very smoothly—through this orchestral guided tour of blues and jazz and improv. Not your ordinary orchestral concert, to be sure, but without question—the most fun one of this season. Absolutely!
Lots of people know that Mike Garson has been the pianist for David Bowie for 33 years. And may even know that he’s toured with Smashing Pumpkins and recorded with Nine Inch Nails. He’s also toured with Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Clarke and Freeflight. Maybe not so many know he’s an accomplished composer in his own right, drawing on his strong classical (yes! really!) background to produce etudes and symphonies and all sorts of musical treats. Some of these would work just as well down the street at Severance Hall with its resident band.
Of the nine works listed in the program, seven of them were world premieres. That’s a lot of new music! The young musicians in the orchestra did a fabulous job learning—and playing—this new, unfamiliar and frequently thorny music, and deserve every commendation possible for having done so.
The program began with Garson’s Metropolis orchestrated by Bruce Donnelley. It’s just what it says—a trip through a big, bustling city. It ended with Garson and his special guests Bill Ransom, drumset, and Glenn Holmes, bass, making their way in through the house and onstage for a swinging version of Dave Brubeck’s classic Blue Rondo a la turk tweaked a bit by James Walker and Garson into a piece for orchestra and piano trio.
Jazz improvisation is one thing, jazz improv for a symphony orchestra is quite another. Garson taped himself playing the original version of his Avant Garson Suite. This was then sent to Paul Leary for orchestration. For the concert, however, Garson then improvised at the piano over the orchestration. It all worked wonderfully well! The program notes say “This will be a first in the classical world where the composer virtually composes a new work on top of an existing work during performance.” Although the piano part added during the concert worked well, the orchestral part would probably also work well, all by itself
David Bowie’s classic Space Oddity followed. Again Leary did the orchestration adding in chorus and piano.
For the first time in their eleven years of existence, the CYO then played a work by a composer who did not live during the 1900s. Frederick Chopin died in 1849, but he’s one of Mike Garson’s favorite composers, so the rules were gently bent to allow the inclusion of his Prelude in c minor. Certainly the composer would have been thrilled by this performance. Emilio Kauderer did the orchestration, turning the piece into a small scale concerto, opening with the jazz trio before enlarging into a lavish treatment with a few piano riffs here and there.
At this point, Garson exclaimed “The world is dissonant!” but not totally. Demonstrating just the opposite, he performed (with the trio) a positively gorgeous piece of his own creation—For my daughters. One daughter had given birth a week or so ago, another was due the following week. This was an absolutely beautiful and delicate combination love song and lullaby. It needs to be recorded. Soon.
Two works composed specifically for CYO followed. First was Peace for audience, orchestra and piano, plus chorus. It was one note—with variations—sing, play, loud, soft, short, long. All the while Garson was noodling around on the piano, sounding like Rachmaninoff practicing. It ended with interesting synthesizer sounds. The second piece nearly brought down the house! Explaining and demonstrating that there was such a thing as a ‘blues’ scale, Garson launched into the CYO Blues, an extraordinary piece with honky-tonk overtones, that allowed several members of the orchestra to solo in front of their mates. Some instruments might have previously been considered strangers to the blues, but no more! Cello, violin, viola, and bassoon joined the more familiar instruments—trombone, trumpet, flute, clarinet, and a couple of players who did double duty on their own instrument plus assisting at the piano, as well as very creditable scat singing. What a blast! As Garson stated, so eloquently, “There is life after the written note!”
''Oneness With All' gave not only the chorus and orchestra a chance to shine, but also Holmes and Ransom. Anyone watching would be convinced that the latter was made of rubber, he’s so limber and in constant motion. Near the end, again Garson turned to the synthesizer, this time producing organ sounds.
Another bending of the rules allowed Garson to demonstrate his version of Paganini’s 24th Caprice, but this time for piano and jazz piano trio. For sure, the original composer is somewhere gnashing his teeth for not having thought of it himself!
To conclude, Garson promised a Gershwin Medley. Some of this was planned in advance, and orchestrated by Leary (as was Oneness) but the artist also took requests from the audience. We were therefore treated to about two bars of every song Gershwin ever wrote, as well as some he didn’t write—Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (Rodgers) and Old Man River (Kern) to name just two of them. It began with Rhapsody in Blue, moved into Our Love is Here to Stay, then Summertime and Embraceable You, with bits of the Rhapsody interspersed here and there, and a meltingly lovely bit by concertmaster Lavinia Pavlish in Lady Be Good.
It would be a safe bet to say that anyone who heard this concert will never forget it. The young musicians who participated will carry the memory with them forever. Liza Grossman and Mike Garson deserve every accolade possible for making this memorable—and fun!—concert a reality. It would make a splendid annual event—but in a bigger venue, and with an intermission, please.
CYO’s next concert—One With Everything—will be at Blossom Music Center on Thursday, May 25, with guest artists, the entire band STYX!! Tickets will be available shortly through www.ticketmaster.com or by calling (216) 241-5555. For information about CYO, visit their site at: http://www.cyorchestra.org
From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATadelphia.net (:divend:)