BSO mixes memories with energy of youth

In New York City, workers are removing the last of Christo’s 7,000 orange fabric gates. In the Louvre, despite conservation measures, paint grows brittle, gravity does its work, and da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” ages. In Egypt, a few more grains of sand fall from the surface of the Sphinx. No monument, no art lasts forever. Music least of all.

Compositions can be written down and notated, but music lasts only as long as it takes to play it. For a little while, three minutes or 20 or 50, musicians and listeners join together to share the art, and then it is over. And yet, there seems to be a place in the heart, the soul, and especially the memory, where music is eternal, and to this place we return when we hear the music anew.

This past Sunday afternoon at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono the Bangor Symphony Orchestra brought the audience to that place. In a concert dedicated to the 40th anniversary of past conductor Peter Re’s involvement with the BSO, the audience remembered the gifts of the beloved former director, while celebrating a brilliant young musician whose playing will be remembered for a long time.

Re led the orchestra in the opening piece, his own composition, “Celebratory Overture.” In the same musical family as Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” the work features repeating crescendos and an excellent use of tonal color in the brasses creating and resolving tension.

After the performance, Re was presented with a commemorative plaque and a crystal bowl in appreciation of his 11 years as symphony leader, during which he changed the BSO from a faltering volunteer ensemble to the professional community orchestra it is today.

Next on the program was the Khachaturian Violin Concerto in D minor, performed by the orchestra and guest artist Chuanyun Li, a ball-of-fire virtuoso. The concerto begins with a fast melody, which Li handled with an almost fiddle vernacular. From there, the young man slid, soared, and screamed through 35 minutes of boundlessly energetic performance. An extended cadenza in the second – and rather Gershwinesque – movement and the seamless rejoin with the orchestra afterward were absolutely breathtaking.

After a standing ovation and whistles and cheers, Li performed two solo encores, the first a lyrical version of “Fisherman’s Song,” which Li attributed to Li Zhi Li, and the second, a very free, fresh and blazing-fast gypsy “Csardas” by Vittorio Monti.

When the BSO returned after the intermission to perform Symphony No. 6 in B minor by Dimitri Shostakovich, so did Li, quietly playing along in a seat behind the third violins.

Sunday’s concert was a timeless gem. Among those whose performances shone, first kudos to Lynn Brubaker and her solid string section, which never disappoints. Kudos to clarinetist Danielle Alley, flutists Susan Heath, Patricia Eames and Elizabeth Downing, and English hornist Laura Green Estey. Finally, praise for BSO conductor Xiao-Lu Li, whose warmth and good will are equaled by his energetic and dynamic musical leadership.

The next regular BSO concert on April 17 will feature pieces by Beethoven and Randal Thompson. For a complete listing of all BSO events, visit the Web site at www.bangorsymphony.com.

Helen York can be contacted at heyork@hotmail.com