Delicious drama from virtuoso Leong and maestra Okisawa

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This article was published 09/12/2023 (1042 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CANADIAN virtuoso violinist Kerson Leong marked a dazzling local debut Thursday night, when the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra presented the dynamo during its latest offering in its ongoing Thursday Classics series, Strauss’s Don Juan.

The concert also featured the WSO première of award-winning maestra Nodoka Okisawa, newly appointed chief conductor of the City of Kyoto Symphony Orchestra. Assistant conductor Monica Chen served as charming host throughout the 77-minute program (performed sans intermission), adding insightful commentary and fun facts that provided further context.

Typically, a guest soloist will perform a single concerto on a program. The fearless fiddler, who took home the top prize at the prestigious International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in 2010, tackled two seismic works back-to-back, with only a few minutes to regroup between selections.

Leong continues to be lauded for both his solo and chamber music performances around the globe, and boasts an impressive discography performed on his precious “ex Bohrer, Baumgartner” Guarneri del Gesù violin.

Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19 was an ideal showcase for his blazing artistry. Displaying supreme control, his poised playing eschewing any temptation towards histrionics, the virtuoso immediately dug into its ethereal opening movement, Allegro, as his solo line ascended with the grace of a meadowlark.

Leong is also a player who knows exactly what he wants to say and how to express it with palpable conviction. He proceeded to unleash his full arsenal of pyrotechnics in the subsequent Scherzo: Vivacissimo, ripping through lightning-speed runs and tossing off treacherous double stop passages with aplomb.

The finale, Modernato — Allegro modernato, more clearly showed off his honey-sweet tone and lyrical phrasing, punctuated by gossamer-light trills that earned him the night’s first standing ovation by the enthralled crowd of 1,195.

That would have been enough; however, Leong returned with the WSO première of Montreal-born Samy Moussa’s Juno Award-winning Violin Concerto. Inspired by the now Berlin-based composer’s journey to Sicily’s ancient town of Adrano, the three-movement work conjures the power of Adranus, the god of fire believed to live below Mount Etna, evoked by a suggested “lone worshipper,” a.k.a. the mighty contrabassoon in its deepest, most lugubrious range, performed by the always wonderful Allen Harrington.

Okisawa paced its dramatic four movements like an epic page-turner, clearly cuing the musicians throughout its extremes, from its opening hushed tones to violent bursts of sound punctuating the violinist’s solo lines.

A highlight was the work’s unusual cadenza, which comprises its entire second movement, performed freely by Leong as a still-point before the third movement’s fiery storms.

This compelling piece that should be heard again ends with the muted trumpet section echoing the opening notes of Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, immortalized in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Once again, the audience rose to its feet with cries of “Bravo.”

The program closed with Richard Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan, capturing the bravado of the notorious Spanish libertine; it’s standard audition fare for aspiring orchestra members, owing to its fiendishly demanding score. Kudos to concertmaster Gwen Hoebig and oboist Caitlin Broms-Jacobs for their expressive solos that added further colour and life to this descriptive work.

Last but not least, Ukrainian composer Fidor Yakimenko’s Nocturne in D major for Strings launched the evening as a highly meditative work filled with lush sonorities; it would likely have gelled more successfully with greater rehearsal time, despite Okisawa’s innately sensitive direction.

holly.harris@shaw.ca