In Monday’s (4/19) Orlando Sentinel, Scott Warfield writes, “On Saturday evening at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre, the Orlando Philharmonic gave its second-to-last concert on its 2009-10 Super Series. … The point of it was the impressive premiere of The Circle Closes by Composer-in-Residence, Stella Sung. This extended single-movement work was at least the fourth premiere of a Sung composition on an Orlando Philharmonic concert in recent years, but this was the first of her works without an explicit extramusical connection. … The first half of the work was a continual series of small climaxes, each built out of shifting modular units. Wide-spaced melodies in the strings rose over quasi-minimalist ostinati and competed for attention against liberal outbursts in the percussion. … Midway through the piece, the mood lightened considerably and the percussion fell silent. Instead one soon heard a vague sustained tone that came from two crystal ‘singing’ bowls of a type frequently used in meditation and healing.” Music by Debussy, Respighi, and Rimsky-Korsakov rounded out the program, led by music director Christopher Wilkins.
Posted April 21, 2010
