In Review

Eastman students wow at St. Paul’s: A conversation

BY C.S. GILBERT

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

I am the last person to be competent to write a review of classical music. I worship at the feet of people such as Edward Pitts, who never fails to enrich my appreciation of the South Florida Symphony Orchestra, and Konk Life’s own music critic, Harry Schroeder, a terrific trombone player, a central figure in the Paradise Big Band and sparkplug of the more intimate Paradise Swing Band. I may be minimally competent to review jazz and I can certainly express the emotional impact of almost any performance. But attending a classical concert with Schroeder is a gift in itself.

Imagine, if you will, the aftermath of last week’s superb Music in Paradise offering: 9 to 5, a woodwind quartet of Eastman School of Music juniors, including hometown boy and musical wunderkind Dominic Giardino, Key West High School Class of 2012, on clarinet. In addition to Giardino, the players were bassoonists Abigail Adams of the Chicago area and Michael Elderkin of Raleigh, N.C. Completing the quartet was Jillian Honn of Dallas, Texas. Even during the concert, Schroeder and I exchanged glances of wonder at the mature, professional quality of their playing.

“Wow,” I said.

“Music In Paradise, produced by Michael Kilgore and Linda Sparks, has become the home of a lot of very good music here which wouldn’t otherwise have been played,” Schroeder observed, noting Sparks’s accompaniment on harpsichord.

“Wow,” I said.

Giardino has earned mention in several of Schroeder’s reviews, including the one of the vintage Civil War Coates Band, as “the person mainly responsible for bringing that band down here” and “served urbanely as master of ceremonies, and then took his place on the bass drum.” In “Linda’s Christmas concert, 2011: ‘Dominic Giardino, putting aside his clarinet for the moment, served as MC.'”

From the review of her 2011 Gershwin concert, “Giardino, who has been checking out major music schools in preparation for what looks to become a very high-level career in concert music, was out front on the very demanding solo clarinet part in the Rhapsody. His playing of it was strong, note perfect and accurate to the idiom.”

“Wow.”

And from Music in Paradise’s 2012 Student Competition, “Dominic Giardino, the clarinetist (just accepted at Eastman, the music school rated best in the country for instrumental performance), played a sonata by Brahms. His tone was round and full and his phrasing was eloquent, without a moment of letdown during the entire extended performance.”

“Wow.”

The hometown boy did not disappoint. He “played with the same lovely tone and high order of musicianship which local audiences may remember.” In addition, Schroeder observed, he was an urbane, relaxed MC and organized the quartet’s trip to Key West. “How few musicians can ever organize anything,” he opined.

“Wow.”

“The concert opened with a piece by Percy Grainger in which all four melodic lines were contrapuntal to each other, and closed with one by the trombonists’ composer Henry Fillmore, in which Mr. Elderkin succeeded in making his bassoon actually sound like a trombone. The center of the concert was music by Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach, and Beethoven.

“Wow.”

“Half of the program was arranged by the players. Some of the music was of necessity transcribed from its original instrumentation: thus, for example, one piece was a transcription of a Mozart String Quartet, and in another, Ms. Arnold, on bassoon, played what was originally a cello part.”

“Wow.”

“All played exceptionally well. The outstanding player was oboist Jillian Honn. Her sound was brilliant without ever being harsh. She played consistently in tune, and her phrasing was both relaxed and rhythmically correct. And she got all the music there was out of each piece. It sometimes happens that a musician plays so well that one feels that one has just had a music lesson: Her playing on Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’ was one of those times.”

This was the young musicians’ second visit to Key West. We look forward to the third next year.

 

 

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