Too often, the public relations side of classical music is more style than substance — not at the Oakland Symphony. The palpable vision of community and purpose that shaped last Friday’s program at the Paramount Theatre found a fitting reflection in the orchestra’s unified and deliberate ensemble sound.
As conductor Kedrick Armstrong characterized it, To These Shores paid tribute to four composers — Chen Yi, Reena Esmail, Gustav Mahler, and Daniel Bernard Roumain — who each forged a unique way of incorporating their cultural backgrounds into classical music in the United States.
For Chen Yi’s tribute, the symphony drew upon material from Chinese folk music and Peking Opera in forming her work Introduction, Andante, and Allegro. From a ceremonious opening horn motive in fifths, the violins emerge with a sly, lyrical melody teetering on the edge of atonality. The ensemble expertly balanced the dense polyphony that gradually accumulated from this idea. Indeed, this piece is where the orchestra’s strengths came into fullest relief. Particularly impressive were the woodwinds, who played with an integrated and intentional tone as a section. Whereas even some first-rate woodwind sections can sound like a mere coalition of soloists, the Oakland winds demonstrated a refined ear for blend and interplay, lending clarity not just to their section but to the entire orchestra.
In the second movement of Chen’s piece, there were minor intonation issues in the strings and brass, but the music’s expressive core remained clear; the ethereal stratospheric harmonies floating over groaning low winds and strings painted a vivid picture under Armstrong’s baton. The only thing working against the orchestra was the dull, dry acoustics of the Paramount Theatre; aside from hollowing out the strings’ shimmer, the hall swallowed up the brass and percussion at the far edges of the stage.
Only on a program this contemporary would Gustav Mahler seem like such an outlier. The Adagio from his Tenth Symphony is separated from the other works by more than a century. Following a distinctly articulated rendition of the wandering viola soli, the violins’ artful shaping of the legato theme was gripping and passionate yet retained a sense of intimacy and tenderness. Underneath, the low brass provided truly masterful support for the strings, never overbearing, simply imbuing them with a poignant fullness and luminosity. The orchestra seamlessly handled each transition into the coy, scherzo-like contrasting idea with subtle expressive rubato. As this skittish music intensified, the winds brought a refreshing wryness to the sneering trills, which are too frequently muted in overly sentimental interpretations of this movement.
In the latter half of the Mahler, the orchestra began to lose its footing. While the themes remained intact, in connective moments the music faltered just enough to lose the sense of continuity and momentum leading up to the eruptive, climactic scream. Still, the closing pages were rendered with such care for color, pacing, and transparency that the overall impression remained deeply affecting. If Armstrong’s discerning ear for orchestral texture stood out in the Chen, his Mahler revealed an exceptional talent for interpretation and phrasing. His nuanced choices were clearly communicated, and thus the orchestra consistently sounded greater than the sum of its parts.
The evening concluded with the world premiere of America, To US, a violin concerto by Oakland Symphony Artist in Residence Daniel Bernard Roumain, written for Tracy Silverman. Silverman’s six-string electric violin — processed through effects pedals and amplified — often sounded more like an overdriven electric guitar than a fiddle. Silverman brought all the virtuosity of a romantic showpiece to this new instrument, transforming it into something both wholly new and uncannily familiar. Particularly striking was his off-the-string playing, where the grittiness of his bouncing bow, distorted by the pedals, took on a percussive edge.
Roumain’s score oscillates between brash tutti exchanges with Silverman and impassioned, melody-driven writing, culminating in what the composer refers to as a “Town Hall Cadenza.” As the orchestra quietly sustains the harmony, nine members of the Oakland community are given the opportunity to speak freely into a microphone. Children sang and expressed their dreams; adults gave stirring orations, both political and poetic. Structurally, the gesture recalls Theodor W. Adorno’s idea of “breakthrough” in Mahler — moments when the symphony is interrupted by the sound of the outside world. In a similar way, Roumain’s cadenza wholly resists assimilation into the rest of the composition. In this context, the concerto’s closing — a beautiful, mellifluous violin solo — reads as a prayer for the better world that was imagined in the Town Hall Cadenza. While this provides a moment of hope and unity, it also tacitly condemns the failure of the present to live up to that ideal.