Pop goes the Orchestra! (Or maybe pops).
Mood:  lyrical
Now Playing: USC Performing Arts Center
Topic: Beaufort Orchestra
The Beaufort Orchestra did it again! In case you haven’t been keeping score, they just keep getting better. Last night’s performance was genuinely delightful. In the period of 15 months that this reporter has witnessed, the orchestra has improved its technical prowess, its tonality and its dynamic range. That means it sounds good, as Sam Goldwyn might say.

How many times have you attended a world premiere? I have managed a grand total of one in over 60 years of trying. Last night proved the clincher as the orchestra under the baton of Fred Devyatkin presented Dick Goodwin’s Sea Island Sketches. This suite in four movements said it all, even though this listener expected the third movement, Island Soirees, to be a bit more mystical. Dick Goodwin is professor emeritus at USC The suite was preceded by his Paraph for Clarinet and Orchestra played by his longtime friend and fellow professor, Doug Graham. Graham’s mastery of his instrument was obvious by the third measure.

The other selection prior to intermission was Copland’s Variations on a Shaker Melody (Simple Gifts) from the suite Appalachian Spring. I had the opportunity to hear Aaron Copland on the occasion of his eightieth birthday concert at the Kennedy Center . He performed as one of the pianists in the four-handed Danzon Cubano which he wrote in 1942, the same year he wrote Rodeo (Ballet), A Lincoln Portrait, Fanfare for the Common Man, and Music for the Movies. Copland provided the link to the second half of the performance. The Danzon, like Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Batuque, reminded of Glenn Gould’s Latin American Symphonette. At this point it truly became a pops concert with selections from the mega-hit Les Miserables and the popular Disney film, Pirates of the Carribean.