A Canadian-born pianist joined the Bangor Symphony Orchestra at the Collins Center for the Arts on Sunday for a thrilling concert of 19th century music that also offered a couple of surprises.
Soloist Jon Kimura Parker gave a stunning interpretation of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 at the first concert of the orchestra’s 129th season. Known for his “charisma, enthusiasm and dynamic performances,” Parker did not disappoint as he beautifully captured each arpeggio, trill and scale of the composer’s innovative concerto.
Beethoven was almost completely deaf when the piece premiered in 1811. It was the only one of his piano concertos that he did not play himself at the first public performance.
The piece was innovative at the time as it begins with “the soloist immediately launching into a cadenza just after one introductory chord from the orchestra,” the program note said. Throughout the concerto, the piano and the orchestra engaged in a kind of call and response more typical in gospel than classical music.
Parker, who is a professor of piano at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, surprised and delighted the audience with a rousing encore of Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” released in 1974.
Music Director and Conductor Lucas Richman treated concertgoers to a different sort of surprise — a preview of the score he conducted for the upcoming film “Salem’s Lot,” based on Stephen King’s second novel. The film will be released Oct. 3 on the streaming service Max.
Lisbeth Scott, who composed the music with Nathan Barr, attended the concert and took the stage after a section of the score was played to thank the conductor and the orchestra. The lush score was recorded two years ago, according to Richman.
The maestro frequently programs the music of women composers whose work is not as not well known as their male contemporaries. Sunday’s concert opened with Louise Ferenc’s Overture No. 2. Composed in 1834, it features a “colorful orchestration, expressive melodies and effective sense of drama.” BSO musicians captured all of that Sunday.
The concert included Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, written in just five weeks in late 1850 after he and his family moved to Dusseldorf, Germany, where he took a job as the city’s music director. Also known as the Rhenish symphony, the piece celebrated the sights and sounds of the city and surrounding countryside. The BSO brought all of them brilliantly to life.
Richman, who was hired in 2010, continues to inspire and dazzle audiences with his music selections and first class soloists the conductor persuades to visit northern Maine, a place considered to be far off the usual path of traveling classical soloists. Although not an official title, he is the music director of Greater Bangor.
The concert may be streamed from Sept. 27 through Oct. 11 at bangorsymphony.org.
