PORTLAND, Ore. — Virtuoso percussionist-composer Andy Akiho expanded his compositional palette with a newly minted cello concerto that showered sparks of rhythmic intensity and wit. His Nisei: Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra received an incisive performance Oct. 5 by soloist Jeffrey Zeigler and the Oregon Symphony at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Music director David Danzmayr led the exciting West Coast premiere, which was recorded for release on CD (no label has been identified yet).
The music of Akiho, who is the Oregon Symphony’s 2024-2025 composer-in-residence, has attracted attention lately. Over the past three years, several recordings of his works have been nominated for a Grammy as the Best Contemporary Classical Composition, and his Seven Pillars was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize. Akiho wrote Nisei for former Kronos Quartet member Zeigler, who has often collaborated with the composer over the past decade in programs for National Sawdust and other venues.
Both Akiho and Zeigler are half-Japanese, and Nisei is a term for second-generation Japanese Americans. Set in three movements for strings, winds, and brass, Akiho’s cello concerto does not feature any percussion. It received its world premiere in August at the Sun Valley Music Festival, which co-commissioned the piece with the Oregon Symphony, Bozeman Symphony, ProMusica Columbus, and the South Carolina Philharmonic.
Nisei began with Zeigler repeatedly playing the same note, as if creating a Morse code that was interrupted by crisp sforzandos from the orchestra. Zeigler transitioned to quick, filigree-like phrases, which seemed to span a couple of octaves in the upper register, but the sound he generated was periodically overwhelmed by the orchestra. In the slower second movement, which had lighter orchestration, he explored the lower register and later the higher register with a cantabile style.
The third movement offered a delightful, Baroque-like sound with all strings playing pizzicato. Zeigler interjected faster passages and tricky, stutter-stepping phrases, which were joined by the orchestra. An extensive cadenza in which the cellist threaded a tapestry of lines reminded me of Bach. The orchestra reentered with peppy, snappy articulation for the last segment of the movement. In tutti fashion, everyone moved to a complex rhythm with accented notes popping up here and there, as if randomly. The counting must have been diabolical, but Zeigler and the orchestra made it look easy.
For an encore, the first violins exited the stage, and room was made for one of Akiho’s steel pans. He and Zeigler then serenaded the audience with a lovely rendition of Akiho’s Daidai Iro (“Orange”). It had a lilting melody that summoned images of a warm, carefree breeze on an island in the Caribbean.
The concert opened with Akiho’s Concerto for Steel Pans and Orchestra, his initial foray into orchestral writing, dating back to 2011, when he pursued a master’s degree at Yale University. Wielding three steel drums to cover a wide range, Akiho launched the piece with a sequence of ratatat rim-shots, generating sounds akin to school bells ringing between classes. Deftly switching between different sticks, he transitioned to a slower section in which notes repeated against a wall of plucking strings. A single sforzando signaled the start of a blitzing pace with bright, chromatic lines emanating from the pans. Then came a brilliant, virtuosic cadenza in which Akiho dazzled the audience with a constant tremolo in one hand while interjecting a lovely melodic line in the other. He wrapped up the piece with an emphatic, tutti crescendo that brought down the house.
The second half of the concert took concertgoers into a completely different direction — relaxing listeners’ ears a bit — with Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. Under Danzmayr, the symphony exuded sunshine and optimism with a hint of sadness on the horizon. Apt tempos and terrific dynamics allowed melodies to bloom and glow, with a nod especially to the sound of the horns, led by principal Jeff Garza. Silky strings and articulate woodwinds added to the amber sonic quality that never became sentimental, and any remaining clouds were swept away with the joyful finale.
