By Eileen Wingard
LA JOLLA, California — What a special treat to hear the entire Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra (TICO) playing together again.
The program opened with the Coriolan Overture, opus 62, with some nice playing in the woodwinds and excellent dynamics in the strings. Unfortunately, the long silences at the end proved to be pitfalls, but I am sure that was corrected at the next performance.
Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony is one of the more seldom performed, even numbered symphonies, but no less challenging for the players and engaging for the audience. This glorious music is even more remarkable, given that Beethoven was totally
deaf when he wrote it. The first movement began at a good clip, marked Allegro Vivace e con Brio, as did the last movement.
After intermission, the orchestra returned to accompany local pianist, Karen Follingstad, in Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto. She heads the piano department at San Diego State University. A graduate of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, she received her MM from Indiana University in Bloomington and her doctorate from the University of Texas in Austin. She has soloed with orchestras such as the Minnesota Orchestra and played chamber music with artists such as Yo Yo Ma. She has also recorded for the Hessische Rundfunk and the Norwegian Radio.
The opening solo piano introduction immediately established her authority and high level of musicality. Her dynamics were stellar, her runs rippled off her fingers and her climaxes plumbed the depths of the nine-foot Baldwin grand piano. Her playing reminded me of that of the Polish-born, St. Petersburg Conservatory-trained pianist, Ignace Hilsberg, who helped our JCC Music Committee obtain this excellent instrument in 1970. His benefit concert, in collaboration with violinist Otto Feld, assistant concertmaster of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and Milos Sadlo, Czech cellist, serving as principal of the SDSO, raised the first thousand dollars for the $5,000 it cost. Years later, when it needed renovation, JCC Music Committee member, Sally Sachs, donated $5,000 in memory of her husband, violinist Carl Sachs to accomplish that goal. In its current home at Tifereth Israel Synagogue, it continues to serve the orchestra as an instrument on which pianists, the caliber of Karen Follingstad, are happy to perform.
David and the orchestra did a commendable job accompanying the gifted Follingstad. Highlights of the first and last movements were the exquisitely executed cadenzas in which trills and arpeggios seemed to spring off the keyboard. Phrases were beautifully shaped.
It is a tribute to conductor David Amos and the musicians of the orchestra that artists of this calibre perform with TICO. Follingstad and the orchestra were strongly acclaimed by the enthusiastic, although sparse, audience.