BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Ten years after Carlos Izcaray took the helm as music director of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, this mid-sized Southern orchestra is sustaining the strength and stamina it established during the tenure of its previous music director.
Izcaray is following in the footsteps of Justin Brown, who racked up several ASCAP awards for the ASO in the mid-2010s before leaving for Karlsruhe, Germany. A native Venezuelan and product of the prestigious El Sistema music education program, Izcaray has also made a mark in Birmingham as a cellist and composer.
His place for the ASO’s 2024-25 season opener Sept. 27 was on the podium. While the program was the conventional formula of overture, concerto, and symphony, what transpired was a focused and well-balanced delivery.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Festive Overture, from 1958, is an anomaly for a composer whose music was under constant scrutiny by Soviet censors. Its brassy chords, soaring scales, and celebratory nature made it an ideal starter to the ASO’s season. The work’s delivery can be boisterous bordering on raucous, but Izcaray took a more satisfying approach, keeping it vivid yet muscular, led by the brass but not overwhelmed by them.
Violinist Amaryn Olmeda, a 16-year-old Australia native currently studying with Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory, has already garnered awards and orchestral solo appearances. By tackling Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, she proved she is also fearless. One of the most melodious and technically demanding concertos penned in the 20th century, the Barber presents formidable challenges for the most seasoned virtuosos, to which recordings by the likes of Stern, Shaham, Hahn, Ehnes, and Hadelich can attest.
In the opening movement, Olmeda commanded a relaxed tempo, drawing a sweet, centered tone from her 1864 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume instrument, especially in the highest registers. On stage, she was the picture of charm and composure, paying rapt attention to the ensemble behind her as well as the audience in front of her.
James Sullivan’s plaintive oboe solos led off the slow second movement, matched by fine contributions echoing from ASO’s winds and passionate, at times disarming, solos from Olmeda.
Izcaray led brilliantly in the difficult finale, marked Presto in moto perpetuo. Keeping soloist synced with orchestra is half the battle. Olmeda tossed off the lightning-speed triplet figures with ease. The orchestra responded in kind, with only a few moments of slight ensemble disparity.
Olmeda is clearly on her way to a stellar career. Combining a charismatic stage presence and audience appeal with pinpoint intonation, intense lyricism, and fluid technique, she gave notice that she is here to stay.
An encore, the Gigue from Bach’s E major Partita, was played with slight tempo variations but complete confidence.
While some purists may insist on hearing Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 in C minor (Organ) in a large hall with a pipe organ, not all orchestral spaces are so equipped. Such is the case with the 1,300-seat Jemison Concert Hall at the University of Alabama’s Alys Stephens Center, which was designed in the 1990s with the Alabama Symphony in mind. Forgoing the Saint-Saëns for a season opener was not an option when the work’s majesty fit the occasion and an electronic instrument could fill the role.
Most of the organ part provides harmonic and orchestral filler, so it is not so essential to the work’s overall effect. Missing, of course, is the rafter-shaking volume that can sometimes overwhelm.
On this occasion, the organ keyboard was situated on stage right, behind the violins and next to the piano. Tempering the work’s built-in majesty, Izcaray combined an easygoing pace with an even blend, keeping the winds at bay and allowing strings to soar.
In the first of the symphony’s two movements, the organ entry was an ambient accompaniment as strings led the way. While that may not have been what Saint-Saëns intended, the resulting clarity in this acoustically rich but confined hall had the effect of brilliance and light.
Following a few uneasy ensemble moments in the up-tempo second movement, the organ finally had its way, with organist Patrick Scott blasting away electronically next to four-hand piano flourishes. In the context of this modest space, the effect gave satisfying enough notice that the orchestra season had begun.
