Music and Opera Reviews : New World Finale

The New World Music Festival chamber music series ended its brief stand in Village Theater at UC Irvine on Thursday night with a performance as satisfying as a good meal: not too rich, not too bland, and one couldn’t comfortably have heard another note.

This finale, played by ensembles from the New World Symphony, also featured guest artists who supplied the first half of the program.

Soprano Juliana Gondek found herself short of wind and supple top notes, but long on firm musical and vocal instincts. Barricaded behind a music stand, she read each of her 14 songs. Her emotional reticence contrasted sharply with cellist Ofra Harnoy’s musico-dramatic flair.

Handel’s “Sweet Contentment” demonstrated Gondek’s stylistic understanding and trill, while her strongest emotive input was elicited by Glinka and Rachmaninoff songs and, especially, “Nocturne” by UC Riverside professor Byron Adams. For Ravel’s “Chansons Madecasses,” flutist Karen Fuller joined the trio (Val Underwood was the competent pianist) in a refined, transparent reading.

Hindemith’s “Kleine Kammermusik,” Opus 24, No. 2, served as the evening’s souffle course. John Thorne (flute), Michael Benoit (oboe), Andrew Simon (clarinet), John Kehayas (bassoon) and Paul Loredo (horn) provided terse rhythmic precision, nonchalant bravura and the indispensable bite and dry tone quality for this astringent but lovable score, as well as naively gauche stage deportment.

Not so the eight poised young string players who affectingly brought off Mendelssohn’s great E-flat Octet. Initial scrambles and blurs gave way to unified songfulness before the recapitulation in the opening Allegro. Violinist Tamara Seymour led with impressive control, lyricism, flexibility and brio.