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.”
Last Saturday, April 14, the Youngstown Symphony presented “Side by Side,” the fourth and last Classics Series concert under the baton of Randall Craig Fleischer. The evening’s highlight was the performance of movements from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony with teenage Youth Symphony musicians sitting in tandem with regular orchestra members.