Demarre McGill. Photo source: Fairfax Symphony Orchestra.
In Sunday’s (3/8) Washington Classical Review (Washington, D.C.), Andrew Lindemann Malone writes, “Baltimore-based composer Jonathan Leshnoff received a commission for his Flute Concerto No. 2 … with the request that Leshnoff capture the African American experience in the concerto. Leshnoff, who is white, set himself the challenge of understanding that experience well enough to turn it into his own personal expression. The resulting work received its world premiere on Saturday night at the George Mason Center for the Arts, with soloist Demarre McGill and the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra [led by] music director Christopher Zimmerman. Although African American music, in its many forms, is omnipresent in the United States, Leshnoff’s concerto contains no obvious thematic or stylistic references to it. This is not a criticism—better to avoid incorporating African American music than to include it ham-fistedly … The first movement … opened with a few measures of undulating music in low strings and winds. This yielded to McGill playing a meditative, yearning theme … A final movement [ended] with a beatific melody from McGill.” In Mozart’s Second Flute Concerto, McGill, whose “day job is principal flute of the Seattle Symphony … sounded every bit the virtuoso soloist … After intermission, Zimmerman led the orchestra in a performance of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, the ‘Italian,’ that burst with energy.”
