Music Review: iMAYO Concert
Violinist Gluzman and young musicians shine

Well, now, it was less than a week ago that, in a concert review, I urged the IU Auditorium management to reconsider its policy of admitting people long after the start of a performance because the practice of it caused potential disruption for the faithful folks who got there on time. Let latecomers wait outside until a break was my thought.

So, on Sunday evening, what happens? Not remembering that the Musical Arts Youth Orchestra concert was scheduled to begin at 7 rather than the usual 8, I got to the Auditorium at 7:20 in the belief I was arriving, as I normally do, nice and early.

Not so, of course. Angry with myself and grateful that no one stopped me, I slithered ignominiously into the theater during the second movement of the Khachaturian Violin Concerto. All I can say is, I still believe in a policy change, and I’m sorry to have missed the start of soloist Vadim Gluzman’s performance with MAYO because what I heard thereafter was so satisfying.

Gluzman is a major artist who, by chance and a request from MAYO’s music director, Thomas Loewenheim, agreed not only to play with the orchestra but participate in the preparatory international youth orchestra festival that preceded the concert. What an experience it must have been for these young musicians, quite a few not yet in high school, to collaborate with such an outstanding violinist. He produced a gloriously sweet sound in the second movement of the concerto, the Andante sostenuto, and added pinpoint accuracy as he tumbled nimbly through the intricacies of the concluding Allegro vivace.

The orchestra, renamed iMAYO for the occasion (the “I” for “international”), consisted of MAYO’s usual contingent of 60 musicians, plus members of the IU String Academy, visitors from Israel and Hong Kong and coaches. The amazing Loewenheim had this merged ensemble playing awfully well, not merely in sync with Gluzman but in interpretative accord.

A reading of Schumann’s Symphony Number 3, “Rhenish,” his celebration of the Rhine and Rhineland, also proved praiseworthy. Though a bit rough around the edges, as might be expected from an aggregation so young and quickly put together, it exuded buoyancy and appropriate feelings of joy.

Such a gem this Musical Arts Youth Orchestra is, giving budding musicians in the region a great opportunity to practice and perform outside the school environment under the guidance of a conductor who seems to know just how to get the most into and out of them.

Gluzman, between the Khachaturian and the Schumann, called IU double bassist Bruce Bransby and violinist Meidad Yehudayan, affiliated with the Hong Kong International School Orchestra, to the stage so that they might regale the audience with an encore: a P.D.Q. Bach sort of send-up of a J.S. Bach concerto that had the audience laughing. Fun.

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The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music would like
to thank the Herald Times for permission to republish this review.