As a young man just arrived in New York to further his violin studies Peter Oundjian’s first call-out was to play Leonard Bernstein’s New York New York in a group for the next morning’s Today television programme - with Bernstein himself conducting. The players each received a personal thank you note from Bernstein.
And it was Bernstein’s short Overture to Candide that began the concert and immediately placed us across the Atlantic. Since its first concert performance in 1957 it has become one of the most popular works by a 20th century American composer.
Whilst the stage was being prepared for the Steinway grand piano, and normally we sit and wait, on to the stage popped Peter Oundjian to tell us how much American music there was and perhaps we ought to be discovering it after our Deneve years of romantic French music.
The pianist for Gershwin’s Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra was Canadian Jon Kimura Parker. Not having met before he and Oundjian had graduated the same day from the Juilliard School and in alphabetical order stood one behind the other in the line up. Nowadays he is highly acclaimed internationally and certainly showed us how to play Gershwin. And the way he sat forward was just how we have come to expect of jazz pianists. His feet, rather than attending to the piano’s pedals, were playing along on the floor. What a great performance. Oundjian persuaded him to give us an encore - Danny Elfman’s theme for The Simpsons.
Quite properly the pre-concert conversation on the top floor had the American principal tuba player John Whitener armed with his iPad full of questions for Peter Oundjian. It was a fast moving inquiry of the music director’s life and times - and impressive it has been. For a moment or two Peter Oundjian was mimicking his Scottish grandmother’s accent.
And the conductor was back on stage after the interval, but firstly informally, to tell us about John Adams’ Harmonielehre which he described as a real masterpiece and very difficult to play. If there is one abiding memory it is of the percussion team moving sometimes hurriedly at the back of the Orchestra from one instrument to another, of the trumpets and trombones and of Michael Gibson’s timpani.
Event: Friday 8 February 2013 at 7.30pm