Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra Concert

“Winter” began and ended last weekend’s concert by the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra. The mid-winter concert’s theme was “Old and New,” featuring soloists and smaller ensembles rather than the full orchestra. Former GGFSO conductor Timm Rolek, now Artistic Director and Conductor of the Sacramento Opera and the Lake Tahoe Music Festival, was back as a guest conductor.

The first half of the evening was an all-Baroque program, starting with “Winter” from Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” continuing with George Frideric Handel’s harp concerto in B flat, Tomaso Albinoni’s trumpet concerto in B flat (originally written for oboe), and Johann Sebastian Bach’s viola concerto in E flat.

After a brief intermission, the program jumped up to the mid-nineteenth and then the twentieth century for Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll,” Paul Hindemith’s “Kleine Kammermusik” for wind quintet, Arthur Honegger’s “Summer Pastorale,” and finally modern Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla’s “Invierno Porteño” (Buenos Aires Winter).

It was a pleasant two hours of music, although the second half of the program seemed to flow more smoothly, particularly the Hindemith and the Honegger, leading to the spectacular Piazzolla. In the first half harp soloist Sarahlyn Robinson-Scott breathed life into the Handel but had some rhythmic anomalies that worked against the piece on occasion. Ronnie Ingle’s trumpet was a definite highlight of the Albinoni and Gerald Gaul did a nice job with the Bach.

Easily the showpiece numbers of the concert were the first and especially the last, both entitled “Winter,” and both featuring violin virtuoso Alejandro Drago as the soloist. Drago, a native of Argenina, is Director of String and Orchestral Studies at UND. He did his own arrangement of the Piazzolla piece for solo violin, strings, and piano, striving to preserve the phrasing of Piazzolla’s personal performances with original quintet of bandoneón, violin, piano, electric guitar, and bass.

Vivaldi’s “Winter” has rarely sounded more intense, and Piazzolla’s “Winter” was a stirring blend of classical tradition with modern harmonies and vivid tango rhythms. The finale earned Drago a deserved standing ovation.

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