By Eileen Wingard
SAN DIEGO — Jerome Summers hales from Ontario, Canada, where he is Music Director of the Stratford Symphony Orchestra and, across the border, conducts the International Symphony Orchestra of Sarnia/Port Huron, Michigan. Summers was in San Diego recently to guest conduct TICO. For several days prior to TICO’s opening concerts November 15 and 17, Summers presided over three rehearsals.
“He was very demanding,” reported one TICO violinist.” “Summers worked us hard,” commented another. Whatever method or magic Summers used to whip the orchestra into shape, he produced excellent results. The strings, in particular, were visibly alert, using full bows, and playing with the kind of true intonation and warm vibrato which give a special sheen to the sound. Attacks and releases were precise.
Summers conducted with great expressiveness, using broad motions and a variety of gestures. Born and educated in British Columbia, he played clarinet in the Vancouver Symphony and the CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestras before devoting his career to conducting, soloing, composing and teaching.
David Amos, conductor of TICO, recently conducted the Stratford Symphony Orchestra with enthusiastic response. Summers’ guest conducting stint with TICO is the second half of that fortunate exchange.
It is a valuable experience for musicians to play under different conductors, as I know from my three decades of playing in the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. A new face, a new perspective can often spark renewed vigor. Such was the case with Summers and TICO.
His program had some clever touches. The concluding work, Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Von Weber, the most difficult piece on the program, had, as one of the themes, the flute tune from Von Weber’s Overture to Turandot. Summers programmed that piece so the listeners could hear the source of Hindemith’s theme. Summers cleverly placed his own arrangement of Bruckner’s Adagio between the two works “as a musical sorbet to clear the palate” before the final work.
The strings performed the Adagio with lovely ensemble, beautiful tone quality and a pleasing range of dynamics.
The concert opened with an energetic rendition of A Canadian Celebration Overture by fellow countryman Ronald Royer, and was followed by Von Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1, expertly performed by San Diego State University’s Professor of Music, Marian Liebowitz. As a clarinetist himself, Summers led the orchestral forces in a sympathetic accompaniment for the impressive soloist.
This was followed by “Victor’s Tale” from The Terminal by John Williams, with Liebowitz as soloist. The selection was chosen because it has a section which resembles klezmer music. Liebowitz, who plays klezmer music idiomatically, as confirmed by her recent CD, Jewish Friends and Neighbors , performed this work with conviction.
Although Williams is not Jewish, one of the most frequently played pieces on Jewish music programs is his Suite from Schindler’s List. Also, of interest, his grandson is Jewish (Williams’ son married a Jewish woman) and will be going to Israel next month with Ashreinu, an Orthodox group dedicated to bringing nonaffiliated college-age Jews back to the fold.
The next TICO concert will be about Humor in Classical Music. For an intimate musical experience and an amusing evening of musical fun, be sure to mark your calendar for February 2, 7:30 p.m. in the Cohen Social Hall of Tifereth Israel Synagogue.
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Wingard is a freelance writer and retired San Diego Symphony Orchestra violinist