Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)
October 11, 2005 Tuesday

Symphony opens year luminously

by Edward Reichel

SALT LAKE SYMPHONY, Libby Gardner Concet Hall, Saturday.

The Salt Lake Symphony opened its new season Saturday under the baton
of its new music director, Robert Baldwin, with a program of music by
Barber, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky.

Baldwin led the orchestra in wonderfully articulate readings that
showed his keen sense of expression and perceptiveness. And the
orchestra, for its part, played luminously. The evening’s soloist was
the young Armenian pianist Karen Hakobyan, who played Tchaikovsky’s
ever popular B flat minor Concerto in the second half of the concert.

A former Gina Bachauer competitor and currently a student at the
University of Utah, Hakobyan is an immensely talented and dynamic
performer with an impressive technical command of his instrument. The
20-year-old made short work of the pyrotechnic demands placed on the
soloist in the first movement. However, Hakobyan was also at times
rather careless in his playing and fell to using the pedal
excessively.

In the first movement, Hakobyan attacked the music too aggressively,
making his interpretation too one-dimensional and monotonous. It also
frequently affected the balance between the piano and the orchestra.
The poetic slow movement and the fiery finale fared much better.

The concert opened with Barber’s “Essay No. 2.” This ruggedly
expressive piece with its bold statements and dramatic force is one
of the composer’s more intense forays into orchestral music.

Baldwin captured the drama and vitality of the “Essay” wonderfully,
giving a finely wrought reading that was dynamic and quite often
electrifying.

The orchestra, with few exceptions, played wonderfully. In
particular, tenor saxophonist Dave Feller was remarkable in his
extensive part, playing with expressiveness and eloquence.