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Review: Akron Symphony celebrates 40th Anniversary of E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall (October 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

EJ-Thomas-exteriorThere were no speeches on Saturday evening when Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony celebrated the fortieth anniversary of E.J. Thomas Hall, just plenty of rich orchestral sound, cleverly designed to make a dry acoustical space ring with festive sonority.

Canny programming added to the celebratory nature of the evening. Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture (led by UA’s Guy Victor Bordo) contributed a sense of gravitas to a joint observance between the ASO and the University of Akron, and UA composer Nikola Resanovic’s infectious clarinet concerto provided bubbles for the anniversary toast. Richard Strauss’s brilliant orchestral tone poem (and monumental tribute to himself), Ein Heldenleben, gave the orchestra an opportunity to show itself off, something it did unabashedly and to brilliant effect.

One big factor in pulling this celebration off so successfully was Wilkins’s decision to fill out the string sections for the occasion, and to elevate winds and brass on a series of risers to better equalize balances and projection. [Read more…]

Preview: Akron Symphony to celebrate fortieth anniversary of E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall on October 12

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by Mike Telin

EJ-Thomas-exteriorWhen the Edwin J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall opened at the University of Akron in October 1973, the multi-use space received rave reviews from critics. The 2,955 seat auditorium also became home to the Akron Symphony. On Saturday, October 12 beginning at 8:00 pm, Music Director Christopher Wilkins will lead the ASO in a concert that celebrates the Hall’s 40th anniversary. The program features Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture conducted by Guy Victor Bordo, Nikola Resanovic’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (Collateral Damage) with Kristina Belisle Jones as soloist, and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben.

As is the case with many of the world’s concert halls, E.J. Thomas has presented acoustical challenges for the symphony. But as Wilkins points out, “the positives of E.J. Thomas are easy to enumerate. It’s a very comfortable space for the audience and I think it’s an interesting piece of architecture. Also the physical location is ideal because it’s right on the line between the University campus and downtown and as the campus has moved toward downtown that whole area is so active.”

Wilkins says he chose Ein Heldenleben not so much because it was autobiographical for Strauss but rather it was a musical story of an artist’s life. [Read more…]

Review: Akron Symphony opening concert with Levi Hammer (September 15)

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by Daniel Hathaway

ASO-WilkinsThe Akron Symphony opened its new season on Sunday evening at E.J. Thomas Hall under the expressive baton of music director Christopher Wilkins with assured performances of a Ron Nelson overture, a Mozart piano concerto with assistant conductor Levi Hammer at the “Three Graces” Steinway, and a Brahms Symphony. The High Holy Days bumped the performance a day later than the ASO’s normal Saturday evening slot and probably accounted for an opening night crowd a bit smaller than usual but no less effusive in its support for their local ensemble.

Brahms was famously nervous about producing his first symphony. The project languished for years as the composer’s original ideas were repurposed into a piano concerto and parts of his Requiem. What finally emerged in 1876 has become one of the standards of the repertoire, and the ASO did the piece proud. A rich, full, blended tone filled the hall in the tuttis and solo winds (notably oboist Terry Orcutt and clarinetist Kristina Belisle Jones) were splendidly lyrical. [Read more…]

Review: Akron Symphony’s Rite of Spring (April 13)

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by Mike Telin

ASO-RiteAlthough Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is now recognized as one of the most important musical scores of the 20th century, the story of its premiere in May of 1913 is now a legend. And the question of whether or not it was Stravinsky’s music or Nijinsky’s choreography that caused the near-riot reaction from the Parisian audience is still the subject of debate. On Saturday, April 13 at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall, the Akron Symphony Orchestra and Cleveland-based GroundWorks DanceTheater along with guest dancers — both professional and amateur — presented an enthralling new production of Stravinsky’s mammoth ballet score.

During the past few years The Akron Symphony has presented some outstanding performances resulting from community-based projects (think Porgy and Bess) and Saturday’s performance did not disappoint. Stravinsky said, “What I was trying to convey in The Rite was the surge of spring, the magnificent upsurge of nature re-born,” and GroundWorks’s artistic director David Shimotahakara’s imaginative choreography brilliantly served the composer’s wishes. And a cast of dancers that included GroundWorks’ five members, three other professionals and an ensemble of 15 Akron area students performed with style and conviction. [Read more…]

Review: Akron Symphony anticipates Spring with Beethoven and Haydn (March 2)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The TimesWILKINS-Christopher2 of London has a long tradition of publishing letters from its readers claiming to have heard the first cuckoo of Spring. Though Delius’s piece of the same name wasn’t on the program at E.J. Thomas Hall on Saturday evening, the cuckoo did make an appearance as Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony and Chorus might have been the first musical organization in Northeast Ohio to spread the message that balmy breezes will be blowing not too far in the future. The program brought together two Austrian works first performed in Vienna only seven years apart, each of which evokes the joys of nature in its own delightful way.

Beethoven’s sixth symphony, subtitled “Pastorale,” paints vivid scenes of the countryside and its rustic inhabitants, whose peasant dance is interrupted by a thunderstorm and who return to sing a song of thanksgiving after the skies clear. One of Beethoven’s only ventures into “program music”, the 1807 symphony begins with a depiction of cheerfulness on the part of an urban escapee arriving in the country, authentically incorporates the songs of a nightingale, dove and cuckoo in a scene by the brook, conjures up Donner und Blitzen with the help of thundering kettledrums and drama in the brass, and finally restores peace to the countryside with bucolic horn calls. [Read more…]

Review: Akron Symphony: Gospel Meets Symphony celebrates its twentieth anniversary (February 23)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TwentyWILKINS-Christopher2 seasons ago, late conductor Alan Balter and the Akron Symphony leadership launched an initiative that soon gained so much momentum and community support that it still lives and flourishes two decades later. Gospel Meets Symphony may sound like a potential collision of musical styles but the results are an engaging synthesis of Euroclassical and African American traditions. The latest edition on February 23 brought a choir of two hundred voices and a gospel rhythm section together with the ASO and guest artists, and drew a large and enthusiastic crowd to E.J. Thomas Hall.

Music Director Christopher Wilkins was the warm, chatty and versatile emcee for the evening, which began with tributes to volunteer leaders Ann Lane Gates, Brenda L. Justice and Angeleina Valentine. [Read more…]

Review: Akron Symphony with Alexander Schimpf (January 19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

GermanSCHIMPF-Alexander pianist Alexander Schimpf performed with a Northeast Ohio orchestra under the baton of Christopher Wilkins for the second time in two years on Saturday evening. His first appearance on August 6, 2011 — with The Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven’s fourth concerto — won him top prize in the Cleveland International Piano Competition. His second collaboration came as part of that prize package — a series of bookings with orchestras — as he returned to be the featured soloist in Chopin’s first concerto with the Akron Symphony at E.J. Thomas Hall.

It was clear from the contingent of Cleveland fans who drove down to hear Schimpf that the Cleveland Competition continues to support its laureates not only with post-contest bookings but with enthusiastic moral support. On Saturday, both Akron and Cleveland listeners were obviously thrilled by Schimpf’s gorgeously assured performance of a work the pianist has lived with for more than a decade: Chopin No. 1 was the first work he ever played with an orchestra, at the age of 18. [Read more…]

Akron Symphony Orchestra: Verdi e Puccini

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by Laura Genemans

This past Saturday, the Akron Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony Chorus under the direction of Maestro Hugh Ferguson Floyd in no uncertain terms established its excellence and value in this area as an exceptional musical force.

Verdi’s La forza del destino: Overture opened the program and established the tonal three notes representing the forces of destiny.  Thanks to the excellent pre-concert talk by Maestro Wilkins you knew what to listen for.  Without words, the orchestra created pictures with the entrance of the strings followed by the lyrical “gypsy-like” melody from the clarinet and flute. The continual movement between the strings (celli and viola) and winds wove the story taking you to your inevitable destiny – concluding with the low brass.  The music carried you due to the way the ensemble followed each other letting the Maestro lead – never releasing that thread of interest and tension.

[Read more…]

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