by Kevin McLaughlin
With a glint of polished silver and a showman’s flair, trumpet soloist Brian Neal highlighted the Youngstown Symphony’s Classical Exploration concert on January 29 at Stambaugh Auditorium with a stirring performance of Joseph Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E-flat.
As the orchestra continues to search for a permanent conductor to replace the late Randall Craig Fleisher, Alberto Bade, a colleague of Neal’s at Miami Dade College, led the orchestra in a program that also included fine performances of Richard Strauss’ Don Juan, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Danse Nègre,” and Antonín Dvořák’s always well-received Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.”