This Saturday at the Music Academy of the West, the focus is entirely on the cream of the cream of the fellows, in both the vocal and instrumental fields.
First, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. in Hahn Hall, there will be the finals of the Marilyn Horne Song Competition. Then, at 8 p.m. in the Granada Theatre, the young virtuosos who played their way into the hearts of the Concerto Competition judges will step out in front of the Festival Orchestra, conducted by the New York Philharmonic’s Courtney Lewis, face (probably) their biggest audience yet, and show us how they did it. This year, Concerto Night is called “Concerto Celebration.”
“The greatest service one can render a composer,” Walter Piston wrote, “is to play his music, a service beside which that of supplying him with food and lodging appears under the heading of relatively minor fringe benefits.”
As for performers, I would say that the greatest service you can render them is to give them an audience, for music is a social art. You may learn technique from your teachers, and practice in solitude until you are satisfied with the sound you make, but until you have reached out with your music and touched the souls of other people you have not truly arrived at the status of musician. (I know that there are many music lovers of a more austere cast who will vehemently oppose what I have just said.) But giving young musical performers an audience is pretty much what the Music Academy is all about, and these two Saturday events represent a pure distillation of that mission.
The singers testing themselves at the Horne competition will face a very discerning audience indeed, and the $2,500 Regina Roney Prize will doubtless come in very handy, but the real prize that the winners will receive is that they will “will be presented in a national recital tour next year.” There’s nothing like a national tour to sharpen up your musicianship.
The Concerto Competition winners will perform the following program: For openers, Hwi-Eun Kim on violin and Asa Maynard on double bass will play Giovanni Bottesini’s Grand Duo Concertante (1800); then pianist Luca Buratto will solo in the third movement of Wolfgang Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in Eb-Major, K. 271, called “Jeunehomme” (1777); followed by Mark Teplitsky on flute soloing in the third movement of Carl Reinecke’s Flute Concerto in D-Major, Opus 283 (1908). The celebration will conclude with the Festival Orchestra performing Béla Bartók’s beloved Concerto for Orchestra (1943).
Tickets to either session of the Horne Competition are $10 and $20, with those ages 7 to 17 admitted free. Tickets to the “Concerto Celebration” are $10, $40 and $50, with those ages 7 to 17 admitted free. For tickets and other information, go in person to the Music Academy at 1070 Fairway Road, call 805.969.8787 or click here.
Single tickets to the Concerto concert can also be purchased from the Granada box office at 805.899.2222 or online by clicking here.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.