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Cobb Symphony Opens Dozier, Atlanta Baroque’s Mozart
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CONCERT REVIEWS
—Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. Friday at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, in Buckhead. www.atlantabaroqueorchestra.org. —Cobb Symphony Orchestra. Saturday at the Dozier Centre, in Kennesaw. www.cobbsymphony.org.
Sprawl and urban infill battle for the future of greater Atlanta, yet the terms have a different meaning when it comes to growth of the region’s music scene.
Over the weekend, two small-budget ensembles that push away from the center — the Cobb Symphony and Atlanta Baroque Orchestra — gave concerts that, paradoxically, prove the region’s classical-music niches are steadily filling in.
First the new and the grand. Carved out of the forest near Kennesaw Mountain, beside a small lake ringed with chestnut trees, the Dozier Centre for the Performing Arts is a $33 million facility owned by developer Don Dozier. The center opened last month; its mission involves performance and education.
Saturday night at the Dozier, the Cobb Symphony moved into its permanent home after 56 years with no fixed address. Proud of the venue and eager to show off the ensemble, conductor Michael Alexander programmed music first intimate, then gargantuan.
With no conductor on stage, they opened with Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin and Cello in B-flat (RV 547). The two soloists — violinist Angele Lawless and cellist David Lloyd, both CSO principal players — were joined by 15 strings and harpsichord. Their playing was smooth and romanticized, with rich tone and lots of vibrato.
Then Alexander returned with several musicians to introduce the other work on the program: Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 — neurotic, voluptuous, majestic music that’s risky even for professional ensembles. As a coming-of-age declaration, it was the first time in the orchestra’s history that they’d ever tackled a complete Mahler symphony.
The performance had its rough spots. And with just 39 string players it was impossible to get the creamy lush tone of Mahler’s old Vienna. Yet Alexander and his musicians didn’t flinch or compromise, and they touched on the essence of the composer.
For the audience, it was meaty and satisfying. The public, however, is only a portion of the Cobb Symphony’s mission. As a community orchestra — with 21 paid professionals and more than 50 skilled amateurs on stage — they need to retain players who look for musical challenges, even if these happen to be a bit above everyone’s heads. In that context, Alexander’s conducting of a community orchestra was astonishingly good.
The acoustics in the 614-seat auditorium helped, somewhat. I sat in different locations before and after intermission. The sound is clear and direct, but pinched. The acoustics are pretty good but far below the best in the region. There’s not much bass in the mix, and the room isn’t reverberant — what musicians call the “hang time.” Huge climaxes, with the orchestral instruments shrieking and the cymbals crashing, made a properly loud noise that withered within an instant. I suspect the auditorium’s ceiling is too low to let the sound blossom.
Another season opened Friday night when the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, explored slight and substance works by young Mozart, part of the never-ending year devoted to the composer’s 250th birthday.
Conductor John Hsu typically has a magic touch, enliving everything he leads, although the G Major Symphony (K 199) which opened the evening was jittery and never came together.
The Violin Concerto in G (K 216) featured ABO concertmaster Karen Clarke, who was fluid in technique and musicianship and seemed more like a solid orchestral player than bravura soloist. Still, they all found their groove in the concerto’s impossibly lovely adagio, with Clarke’s melting, warm phrases.
The wonderfully vibrant and tuneful A Major Symphony (K. 201) closed the concert. Hsu’s knockout reading restored one’s faith in Mozart’s genius, in the appeal of the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra’s period-instrument style and, not least, in the region’s ever-deepening musical culture.
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