Performing Arts

Every so often, a concert leaves you scratching your eyes – or ears – in disbelief. One of them was served up Tuesday evening by the Meadows Symphony Orchestra, at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.

Could a "mere" university orchestra, in this case Southern Methodist University's, really be playing this well? Or were the young musicians just miming while recordings of, say, the London Symphony were playing?

The orchestra is still rebuilding its violin sections after the departure of two key violin teachers a couple of years ago. But if the numbers are still down, the Meadows violins played capably and with considerable finesse.

The improvement since last fall was dramatic, presumably thanks to work by Chee-Yun, who joined the faculty last August as artist-in-residence. The rest of the orchestra hadn't a weak section.

Standout cameos were delivered by Soo Young Kim and Sandra Wu (flute), Linzi Goyette and Jessica Sipple (oboes), Jonathan Jones (clarinet), Lauren Blackerby (English horn), Lynn Moncilovich (bassoon), Amanda Collins (horn) and Kristie Janczyk (piano).

Music director Paul Phillips made most of the concert a musical travelogue. Opening the program, Tchaikovsky's Capriccio italien lacked some electricity, at least until it really got going. But Emanuel Chabrier's España danced and swung its hips quite fetchingly.

Suites 1 and 2 from Manuel de Falla's Three Cornered Hat gave the orchestra plenty of room to show off. Dr. Phillips paced the music thoughtfully and built climaxes strategically. Razzle-dazzle was balanced by passages of sweetness and light.

Chee-Yun was the big-toned soloist in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, but she also tiptoed delicately into violinistic stratospheres. She sounded a little unsettled in patches of the first movement, rushing a little and not always dead in tune. But the cadenza was breathtaking, and the slow movement had a natural lyricism. Dr. Phillips and the orchestra collaborated surely and suavely.

This month's review schedule has included concerts by the University of Texas and University of North Texas symphony orchestras. In both skill and suavity, the Meadows left its competitors in the dust.

The Meadows concert, a fundraiser for scholarships at SMU's Meadows School of the Arts, also honored Dallas arts patron Nancy Hamon.

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