There are several programming paths Maestro Aram Demirjian could have taken for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s season opener this past weekend at the Tennessee Theatre. He could have gone with lighter classics or obvious crowd-pleasers to compensate for the four month summer hiatus. Or he could have opted for the serious gravity of Mozart and Mahler as the New York Philharmonic chose to do this month. Instead, he embraced a refreshing approach of two works that are certainly not considered a pair, George Gershwin’s Concerto in F and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, plus an opening work practically guaranteed to be new and fresh for the audience, Kauyumari by the contemporary Mexican composer, Gabriela Ortiz.
Kauyumari, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and first presented there in 2021, means “blue deer” to the Huichol people of Mexico, and, as indicated in the composer’s program notes, represents a spiritual guide “transformed through an extended pilgrimage into a hallucinogenic cactus called peyote.” The work opened quietly, with attractive and mysterious environmental effects of thunder and rain from percussion and a short passage of “stereo” trumpets out in the house left and right. Quickly, though, it built into a driving and complex repetitive rhythm scheme in the orchestra that suggested Bolero-esque progressive dynamics, but one without a structural destination or any sort of intriguing textural or tonal layering. Clearly, “hallucinogenic journey” means different things to different people. Still, the work’s energy and aggressiveness was infectious and one couldn’t help admiring the orchestra’s rhythmic skills in pulling it off.
Pianist Natasha Paremski last appeared with Demirjian and the KSO in 2019 for Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto. At that time, her performance lived up to her reputation of a bold and demonstrative style that was at home with aggressive playing as well as with silken bubble-infused details. This made her the perfect candidate for Gershwin’s Concerto in F, a work the composer wrote with his own virtuosic pianistic abilities in mind, and a work that has generally not received the respect it is due among its American counterparts.
Paremski and Demirjian were not shy around the jazzy and bluesy moments, as well as with the fluidly-presented main theme that oozes with an American idiom. The pianist leapt into the abundant sparkles that are contrasted with the bold crashing statements. I must admit that I was a little surprised at Ms. Paremski using an iPad score for her performance, but I won’t speculate further on what that might imply. Also on the plus side, the audience was treated to the soulfully rendered trumpet solo passage from the KSO’s new Principal Trumpet, Kole Pantuso.
Admittedly, though, it was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony that the audience had come for—and for which they had braved that Friday evening downtown parking nightmare. Although the work is famous for its opening four-note theme, Demirjian did not dwell on it, avoiding the trap of over-focusing on a motif that is more fully expanded on as the first movement progresses. Although “Fate Knocks on the Door” is essential to understanding the Allegro con brio first movement, it is the composer’s infinitely varying conversation between strings and winds that define Beethoven tonality—and it is with this back and forth of string comment and countering woodwind retort that Demirjian and the orchestra excel at brilliantly. Example here: the gorgeous oboe solo in the first movement rendered with poignance by KSO Principal Claire Chenette.
One generally does not use the word “languid” with Beethoven and tempo, yet that is a compliment here in the second Andante movement. The dynamics of volume play a role, too, as the previously mentioned ebb and flow between sections takes on a dramatic effect.
Demirjian sketched out a Finale movement that seemed miles away from the opening motif, yet was in reality an extension of it in terms of evolution. Pronouncements became clear, textural tensions were resolved, and the stage seemed to get brighter as the tempo acceleration began to tug at one’s internal musical core. There was an unapologetic but triumphant joy with the final measures that simply insists the listener respond. And respond the audience did with an ovation, overjoyed to let Beethoven have a say and a shout-out—certainly a bold reflection of optimism for the new season.
