September 28, 2024
The Church of St. John the Divine
Houston, Texas – USA
ROCO (River Oaks Chamber Orchestra), Mei-Ann Chen, conductor; Steven Newberry, organ; Fred Child, emcee.
Mark BULLER: John the Revelator
Viet CUONG: Constellations
Gustav HOLST: The Planets
Lawrence Wheeler | 30 SEP 2024
The 40-piece chamber orchestra ROCO (formerly the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra), began its 20th season with three world premieres,* including “a new twist on an out-of-this-world classic.” Titled “Remarkable” (after the first letter of ROCO), conductor Mei-Ann Chen led this concert at The Church of St. John the Divine in Houston on September 28th. The concert was hosted by guest emcee Fred Child of American Public Media’s Performance Today. PT has featured ROCO more than 300 times.
ROCO was founded in 2005 at The Church of St. John the Divine by oboist and Juilliard graduate Alecia Lawyer. A charismatic director, she has assembled a group of musicians from all over the US and Canada with impressive solo, chamber music, and orchestral resumés. Lawyer has also attracted extensive support from sponsors, providing longevity to its mission. ROCO is a leader in commissioning new works, especially those by women and composers of color. They are second in the world for gender-diverse programming. Their publicity says, “See how we’re shaping the future of classical music!” One could say they see that future as being “remakeable.”
Houston composer Mark Buller has enjoyed widespread recognition and success. He has written music for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Houston Grand Opera, Houston Chamber Choir, and ROCO, with each organization requesting repeat commissions. This evening’s work, John the Revelator, pays tribute to ROCO’s home venue of The Church of St. John the Divine. Located in River Oaks, Houston’s premiere community, this church has a long history of supporting classical music concerts. As far back as 1982, the church housed the Texas Chamber Orchestra.
As part of this musical “thank-you,” the church’s magnificent organ and accomplished organist, Steven Newberry, were featured. Buller drew inspiration from St. John’s Book of Revelation in the Bible, and the song “John the Revelator” by Blind Willie Johnson (1897-1945). Jaunty and starkly pentatonic—appropriate given its inspiration from a famous blues song—it features recurring motifs in call-and-response choruses. Solo French horn and oboe are featured, with each section briefly highlighted. Organ soloist Newberry dispatched the virtuosic organ part with aplomb. Conductor Chen led ably and ardently.
Next, ROCO presented composer-in-residence Viet Cuong’s latest creation Constellations. Lawyer had suggested using the seating chart for the orchestra viewed from above as a map and lay constellations on top. Where the stars aligned, those musicians would be the soloists for each movement. Constellations is a concerto grosso, a baroque genre that features several soloists (the concertino) and an orchestra (the ripieno or tutti). The form is ritornello, where the internal parts “return.” The soloists include a string quartet, solo cello, oboe, and French horn. The featured ROCO “stars” played beautifully. Conductor Chen again conducted enthusiastically.
In a pre-performance video, Cuong explained how the four selected constellations (Virgo, Aries, Sagittarius, and Leo) related to four beloved family members– his father, brother, husband, and mother. This convergence of celestial bodies and musical expression is quite literally Music of the Spheres. Played without pause, each of the four sections bears a family resemblance. The prevailing emotion is love, as heard in the general, if not entire, use of tonal harmonies. Non-confrontational and new-agey, Constellations adopts an enveloping and undulating aural sound world. While pleasing to the ear, the conversation begins to sound repetitive. A smattering of familial conflict and resolution, represented by dissonance returning to consonance, would be a welcome addition.
While vastly different in tone, the two world premiere pieces share some common characteristics in modern classical music: polyrhythms, diatonicism, simple melodies, and bombastic climaxes. Maintaining a balance between the emotional and intellectual is a continual quest, along with a compelling and challenging point of view. A prime example of that achieved success is the next work, Gustav Holst’s The Planets. One of classical music’s superstars, it was unjustly criticized when first performed due to its innovative nature. Since it ends softly with “Neptune, the Mystic,” some early performances switched movements to end with “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity.” Parts of this work, particularly “Mars, the Bringer of War,” were the inspiration for John Williams’ music for Star Wars.
Continuing a trend of ROCO to repurpose large-scale works, The Planets was orchestrated for chamber orchestra by James Stephenson. Normally performed by an orchestra of 90-100 musicians, it was expertly rescored for ROCO’s 40-member ensemble. The result was surprisingly full and rich-sounding, given the generous and color-revealing acoustics of the church sanctuary. Solo French horn and trumpet had double duty, with the strings producing a volume of sound that belied their numbers. Conductor Chen led ideal tempos and maintained excellent balances. Of particular note was the solemn and patriotic melody in the middle section of “Jupiter.” Beginning mezzoforte, as indicated, Chen carefully modulated the three iterations through forte to fortissimo. Just when you thought the volume had reached its limit, even more was produced, all the while maintaining nobility and unified sound. The result was simply thrilling and, for me, a tear-inducing highlight of the concert.
This performance was accompanied by animations on two screens that included pictures of the planets and the associated Greek gods. Part of ROCO’s multi-media innovations, it served to inform some audience members. While well done, for me it was like having closed caption translations for a language I already speak. Of more interest were those times when the animation stopped and the camera was on the players.
The performance was excellent, but had a very few flaws. The beginning of “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age” had pitch discrepancies. Likewise, the pre-recorded female chorus in “Neptune, the Mystic” was not entirely in tune, as well as being too loud. Conductor Chen was very enthusiastic, often clapping and throwing kisses at various orchestra members between movements. That felt more fitting for a youth orchestra rather than an elite professional ensemble. ■
(* The third world premiere, “Cityscapes” by John Wineglass, was not part of this concert, but was performed the night before by ROCO at the Miller Outdoor Theatre.)
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- ROCO (River Oaks Chamber Orchestra): roco.org
- Mei-Ann Chen: meiannchen.com
- Steven Newberry: sjd.org/team/steven-newberry
- Mark Buller: markbullercomposer.com
- Viet Cuong: vietcuongmusic.com
Read more by Lawrence Wheeler.
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