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San Francisco Classical Voice
Review of Winter Melodies by Dan Leeson
The jazzy and upbeat movement of Avshalomov's work was well
matched by the final movement of Mona Lyn Reese's Winter
Melodies, where excerpts from "String of Pearls",
"Flat-Foot Floogey with a Floy-Floy" and "In
the Mood" were used as variations on her original tune
"Hot Chocolate!" This is a complicated work, with
all sorts of compositional technicalities being used to create
images of despair and bitter cold. The musical picture of
a rose, petals black with frost, is especially cleverly done.
Both composers were in the audience to accept the warm applause.
Because the tunes Reese selected for the variations were from
the 1940s, I expected her to be a silver-hiared dowager approaching
her dotage, perhaps a fan of the Andres Sisters, Glen Miller,
and Slam Stewart. Surprise! She is attractive and much younger,
and a woman with a nostalgic flair and a terrific sense of
humor in her compositions.
Gifts of the Season
The San Jose Chamber Orchestra used works by Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky
and Reese to serenade the cold season
By Scott MacClelland
Reese's pieces started life as a commission by the Groveland
String Quartet of Minneapolis and were reinvented in this
format for Turner's orchestra. This is adventuresome and confident
music. Quartal harmonies (based on the interval of the fourth),
sliding trills and bracing rhythms excite the opening movement,
Gusts of Snow.
The second movement, Wind and Ice, is even more visual in
its effects, with high harmonics driving cold to the bone
and pentatonics transporting the imagination to somewhere
in Asia.
Lost love more than icy conditions infuses Frost on Roses,
a deeply sorrowful passage that closes on a lengthy cello
cadenza that climbs up into its highest register. Cellist
Lucinda Breed Lenicheck's arrival in that stratosphere revealed
pitch insecurities that are difficult to conquer unless one
is a full time solo player.
The work ends with Hot Chocolate!, a reward for all that
freezing and grieving--and a fine, good time in the world
of 1940s swing.
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From the December 14-20, 2000 issue of Metro, Silicon Valley's
Weekly Newspaper.
Copyright (c) 2000 Metro Publishing Inc. Metroactive is affiliated
with the Boulevards Network.
For more information about the San Jose/Silicon Valley area,
visit sanjose.com.
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San Jose Mercury News (CA)
December 12, 2000
Section: Arts & Entertainment
Edition: Morning Final
Page: 1E
Memo:Music Review
SAN JOSE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA CRAFTS A WINTER
TREAT
COLIN SEYMOUR, Mercury News
San Jose Chamber Orchestra
'Winter's Gifts,' featuring works by David Avshalomov, Mona
Lyn Reese, Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky
April may be the cruelest month, but December is the most
depressing for many. It doesn't take a new millennium or a
faltering economy to bring on dark thoughts on these long
nights.
In ''Winter's Gifts,'' the opening concert of San Jose Chamber
Orchestra's 10th season, Barbara Day Turner and her 13-woman,
three-man ensemble managed to stage an unusual, endearing
concert that confronted bleakness head-on and conquered it.
The source of Turner's inspiration was the program's finale,
Mona Lyn Reese's ''Winter Melodies'' (1984). The fourth and
final movement, seemingly out of the blue, pays tribute to
jazz's swing era. Reese, setting the themes of warmth and
reassurance, calls the movement ''Hot Chocolate!''
The complex harmonies -- some dissonant, others lush -- in
the other three movements allowed the orchestra to display
its sonic grandeur, which had increased as the evening wore
on. The third movement, abetted by the evening's best solo
work, by cellist Lucinda Breed Lenicheck, contains a catchy
triple-meter theme. The final movement, again with a classically
structured framework of theme and variations, provided its
jazzy climax.
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