The Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra performed to a full house at the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims on March 27. The program was a delightful mix of both traditional and “off-beat” selections.
The evening began with Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas, the third movement of Maurice Ravel’s “Ma Mere L’Oye.” A wonderfully experimental work on the pentatonic scale, this airy, oceanic composition is modern yet traditional. It was followed by Serge Prokofiev’s infinitely complex “First Violin Concerto.” After a brief intermission, the evening concluded with Tchaikovsky’s complete “Fifth Symphony.”
For this writer, the highlight of the evening was Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto. Soloist Masha Lankovsky makes her violin speak flawlessly on many emotional levels. Her two curtain calls were well deserved.
After the show, Lankkovsky, who was born in Russia and raised in New Zealand and Australia told, me that the first time she heard Serge’s Concerto was on a train to Montreal.
“It was snowing outside when I heard it, and I’ve associated the piece with snow ever since,” she said.
The BCCO performs three concerts a year, and for the past five years, one of these concerts has been at Plymouth Church.
“We love the acoustics of this space” Says Dorothy Savitch, musical director of the BCCO since its inception, “and we’re constantly inspired by the church’s history.”
The concert was especially well attended and BCCO Executive Director Aaron Felder thanked the audience for “affirming that the arts have a place in all our lives…On a Saturday Night!”
The Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra is one of the oldest and largest non-profit community schools of the arts in the nation. In addition to its concerts, the BCCO serves more than seven thousand people a year with free and subsidized music instruction, education and music therapy programs in over 50 schools.
The BCCO’s next performance will be on June 12 at St. Anne & the Holy Trinity Church. Selections for the evening will be Beethoven’’s “Second Piano Concerto” and American composer Howard Hanson’s “Second Symphony.”
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