Review: East meets West at EPO concert

Classical music in the West has a long and rich history; its roots extend to the early medieval period.

Musicians throughout those many centuries have built upon the works of their forerunners while, in the case of the exceptional composers such as Josquin, J.S. Bach, or Debussy have challenged and expanded notions of musical form and sound.

Saturday night's wonderful Evansville Philharmonic Concert presented two very different works, both from classical traditions.

The first half of the concert brought to the concert stage a composition written for the north Indian tabla, a set of drums whose importance in Indian classical music extends back to the 18th Century. Though the symphony was written with a modern Western orchestra in mind, its construction (rhythmic and melodic) and its featuring of a professional tabla player reflect its non-western roots.

The second half of the concert presented a major Rachmaninoff symphony that can be considered a pinnacle of Western romantic symphonic writing.

The tabla concerto is the work of a brilliant young Asian-Canadian (if hyphens help at all) composer whose works merge his traditional training in Sri Lanka with his mastery (he studied at Juilliard) of Western musical composition.

Dinuk Wijeratne balances the varied and energetic sound of the tabla with fine orchestral writing, particularly for strings. In this symphony modern western instruments give voice to traditional Indian musical forms, and the effect is enchanting.

The charismatic soloist, Sandeep Das, is the premiere performer of this piece and has won Grammy awards for his musicianship. He makes his instrument into a many-faceted personality that defies definition as Eastern or Western. The second movement of the concerto was particularly effective on Saturday night: tabla and solo violin combined in a lovely duet. When the concerto concluded with a final clap of the tabla, audience members rose in applause.

Rachmaninoff’s second symphony makes enormous demands of the instrumentalists and the conductor. Its massive frame − four dense movements with many key and tempo changes throughout − encompasses the lush melodies of the third movement, for instance, and the fiesta-like vibrancy and drive of the fourth movement.

Roger Kalia skilfully kept the tempos in check throughout and truly made the orchestra sing. No section of the orchestra was without its dramatic moments, and there were innumerable beautiful solos (especially the clarinet strain in the third movement).

With the final chords still sounding, the audience indicated their appreciation of the performance with a warm ovation.

Before the music began, Kalia announced highlights of he 90th musical season. It might be difficult to top the outstanding quality of this final Classics concert, though.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Review: East meets West at EPO concert