Two Orchestral Concerts at Chapel Hill: Tonu Kalam conducts the UNC Symphony Orchestra; Vladimir Ashkenazy conducts the European Union Youth Orchestra, by Steven Kruger

Tonu-Kalam, Music Director of the UNC Symphony Orchestra

Tonu-Kalam, Music Director of the UNC Symphony Orchestra

The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Memorial Hall

Wednesday, April 13, 2012
UNC Symphony Orchestra
Tonu Kalam, conductor

Higdon – “Light”
Hovhaness – Symphony No. 2, “Mysterious Mountain,” Op. 132
Dvorak – Symphony No. 5 in F major, Op. 76

Friday, April 13, 2012
The European Union Youth Orchestra
Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor
The Carolina Choir, Susan Klebanow, director
Louise Toppin, Andrea Moore, Terry Rhodes (sop)
Maurio Hines (replacing Anthony Dean Griffey), Tim Sparks (ten)
Richard Banks, (bar)
Clara Yang, (pn)

Copland – An Outdoor Overture
Beethoven – Fantasy in C minor for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra, Op.80
R. Strauss – An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64

Every so often it does an “armchair musician” good to step away from being a critic in life—to abandon an unforgivingly abstract, digital and lofty perfectionism—and look instead into the world of young musicians in love with music and personally engaged in its making. That was my motive and mindset in visiting the UNC campus last month. It did not hurt that my oldest school friend, Tonu Kalam, has been conductor of the UNC orchestra for many years and that he, his fiancée, Karyn Ostrom (who plays violin in the ensemble), and their “attack-cat” “Dolce” were my generous and expansive hosts in idyllic surroundings.

Prof. Kalam supervises an orchestra which has the advantage of being immense, but whose refinements over the many years invariably disappear with the awarding of a diploma. At least 65 of its members are not even music majors. And yet the quality of execution is astonishingly high. (Indeed, there were moments during his concert when one might have been forgiven for thinking oneself in the presence of Ashkenazy’s fully professional-sounding European Union Youth Orchestra.) Indeed, several members of Kalam’s orchestra were invited to play sitting in with the EUYO for its concert.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!