by Stephanie Manning
There are very few American cities who can count themselves as having an official fanfare. But now, Akron is one of them.
To celebrate the city’s 200th anniversary, Tuesday Musical commissioned composer Peter Boyer to write Festive Fanfare (For Akron’s Bicentennial). More than a concert piece, a recording of the four-minute fanfare will soon be made available for open-access use at Akron civic events. On April 22, a packed house heard it live for the first time as part of a wide-ranging program by the brass and percussion players of The Cleveland Orchestra.
“Kid — candy store,” Boyer said from the stage at E.J. Thomas Hall, gesturing to himself and then the musicians to describe his excitement. He joined the group after intermission to conduct his latest work, a bright, brassy number with an optimistically “American” feel. The fun rhythmic motifs traded off between the front and back of the stage were nicely memorable but not overly repetitive.
Part of Boyer’s enthusiasm stemmed from working with the Cleveland Orchestra musicians, who unsurprisingly lived up to their sterling reputation that evening. Principal trumpet Michael Sachs put together the ambitious program, which began with the brass and percussion sections trading off smaller pieces.
The trumpets and trombones gave a cheerfully pristine performance of Giovanni Gabrieli’s Canzon per Sonar Septimi Toni No. 2, arranged by Timothy Higgins and conducted by principal tuba Yasuhito Sugiyama. Sachs then took the baton to lead Gabrieli’s somber O Magnum Mysterium, in which the group’s balanced sound effortlessly rose up from the lower voices.
Between those pieces, the stage lights dimmed to complete darkness before a dramatic spotlight revealed the three percussionists, all poised for their next move. Marc Damoulakis, Thomas Sherwood, and Tanner Tanyeri experimented with timbre in Joe Tompkin’s Trio in a Rudimental Style, alternating between their individual snares and bass drums.
The trio stood in a circle around one large bass drum for Nebojsa Jovan Zivkovic’s Trio Per Uno, which also gave each player bongos and gongs. Their coordination was riveting, each player taking turns breaking away for solo moments before the blur of their red-tipped wooden sticks built into a breathless conclusion — sparking plenty of excited cheers.
After a slightly awkward stage reset, both brass and percussion reassembled for Percy Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy. Quiet endings with chords that beautifully faded away characterized the first few movements, the joyful fifth featured Richard Stout’s resonant euphonium, and the French horn section seized their moment in a finale filled with cheerful, catchy melodies.
Not only was Elgar Howarth’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition the longest work of the night, it also required the most players. Conductor Daniel Hege helmed an ensemble augmented with a few non-Cleveland Orchestra members, including an extra tuba. The dark, gloomy sound from Yasuhito Sugiyama and Craig Knox provided a lulling heartbeat to “Il vecchio castello (The Old Castle).”
The technical complexity of this arrangement, arriving at the end of such a physically demanding concert, led to a few blips from “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks” through “Catacombs.” Still, the spell was re-cast during “Cum mortuis in lingua mortua (With the Dead in the Language of the Dead)” thanks to the combination of shimmering glockenspiel and ethereal brass chords. And “The Great Gate of Kiev” came across as gloriously as ever. The players dug deep into their reserves, with at least one trumpet boldly optioning up an octave on the final chord.
Photo by Dale Dong
Published on ClevelandClassical.com May 1, 2025.
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