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If you plan to see the world’s premiere pianist, expecting her to conduct an orchestral standard might not be on your evening’s dance card. At the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder – where artists and musicians can rely on opportunities to explore varied interests under the nurturing auspices of Music Director Peter Oundjian – this is exactly what happened.
Yuja Wang made her conductor debut (yes, in Christian Louboutin heels) with the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra in the sure-fire crowd pleaser, Saint-Saëns’s Bacchanale. Despite her skills being in the developmental stage, watching her movements synchronize with the phrases as the orchestra followed (and helped) her in this new endeavor was humbling. (My favorite moment was when she used ‘piano hands’ to insist on louder articulation – arms raised above her head, fingers reaching out to pound at an imaginary air keyboard; I imagined a passionate child Wang conducting in her living room.) It proved the deep love of music that keeps Wang fresh in her exceptional musicianship.
The experience was a bonus that followed after Wang’s flawless performance of Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto, which she has been touring internationally for the 250th anniversary of the United States. When Barber composed the work in 1961, at the behest of G. Schirmer’s publishing company to commemorate their 100th anniversary, pianists (including Vladimir Horowitz) deemed sections technically unplayable. Barber eventually complied and made changes. One cannot help but wonder if Wang, with her unstoppable technical range, had been alive then, Barber could have kept the original.
Opening with a demanding piano cadenza, Wang needed no warm-up. She introduced the serialist, rhythmic themes (less common than Barber audiences are wont to hear) with a hammered clarity that afforded the unfamiliar listener the opportunity to understand the structure of the work as well as connect choppy thematic material with emotional depth – no easy feat but executed with fluidity by Wang.
…Oundjian opened with a nod towards America’s 250th anniversary celebrations by way of Prokofiev’s American Overture, originally written for the opening of a now-defunct concert hall on Fifth Avenue. A short portrait full of pomp and urban-influenced music reminiscent of early-20th-century New York City life, Oundjian drew out the strength of the orchestra’s brass section while ensuring that a pleasing harp part stood out.
…Oundjian led as much and as little as the players needed, which created – in this 1898 wooden barn auditorium on the side of a mountain – just the right swing in beat to evoke a loose summer night in hot New York City where a story as old as time would play out again, both loving and tragic.