The Philharmonic Winds Osakan performed the Friday evening concert in Corbett Hall to a rather large audience. They perform essentially as a wind ensemble with doublings in just the clarinets, euphoniums and tubas. British composer Adam Gorb introduced the ensemble and the first work was Yo Goto's A Prelude to the Shining Day, which is an effective opener. I heard several of his works this week in exhibit booths and reading sessions and I am impressed with his ability to orchestrate effectively and to create memorable melodies. His use of percussion is in moderation and yet is quite effective, which offers a nice respite from so many percussion-laden works.
Yoshihiro Kimura is the Music Director of the ensemble and shows experience and solid musicianship with an understated and quiet conducting style. His ensemble plays with a bold but warm sound and he brings from them precise articulations and well-shaped phrases. Composer David Gillingham next stepped to the podium to lead his new work Century Variations, which is based on a melody from his 2000 work New Century Dawn. It is an effective concert piece that offers the possibility (not utilized in this performance) to be an introduction to the instruments of band in the manner of Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. There is extensive fine idiomatic percussion writing with a virtuosic timpani part and lots of mallets. The precision of the PWO brass articulations was well demonstrated in this work.
Dennis Johnson of Murray State University conducted Hideki Naniwa's 2006 composition Himmelbilder - Astronomical Ceiling. A work in the traditional slow-fast-slow overture format, it featured multiple ostinati accompanying ominous melodies. The most noteworthy feature was a nice saxophone section moment.
A Mountain in the Distance, a new work by Jun Nagao, completed the first half of the concert. It seems to plod along at the same tempo for most of its 14 minutes, and is often scored on the heavy side. Music about mountains is usually written on a grand scale and with massive sonorities (as has been done in numerous works by Alan Hovhaness and others) but more variety of tempo and texture would have been welcomed here.
Maestro Kimura returned after the intermission with Yasuhide Ito's Variations from the Northern Sea for Band, which dates from 1991. To westerners, Ito is one of the more familiar Japanese composers. This work starts with a powerful concert march that transitions to a sprightly woodwind variation. Parts of the work are reminiscent of Richard Rodgers' Victory at Sea, both in its use of march and song styles and in its portrayal of the ocean in an effective manner. Both of these compositions employ soaring horn melodies and menacing low brass interjections to great effect.
Composer Mark Camphouse led his recent (2008) work Anthem, and drew from the PWO some of the most beautiful pianissimo playing of the entire conference. The work employs fragments of the Star Spangled Banner in a subtle manner and featured a more extensive presentation of the national anthem of Iraq in a strong horn and woodwind chorale.
Glenn Price, WASBE President, led a performance of a wonderful 2007 work by Masamori Taruya, The Archangel Raphael who leaves a House of Tobias. Conducting without score and communicating effectively with the ensemble, Price introduced most of the audience to a slow and beautiful work that is tonal and melodic. Many audience members commented on the beauty and breadth of this work, which even provides an unexpected and fascinating twist at the end. Both the composition and Price's masterful conducting were highlights of the week for me.
This was a difficult concert, especially considering that most of the ensemble was playing one to a part. Remarkably, only a few upper woodwind intonation issues and some minor cracks in the brass resulted from the endurance demands of the program. Maestro Kimura closed the concert with the oldest work of the evening, the 1974 band transcription of a 1955 orchestral work, Fantasy on Osakan Folk Songs by Hiroshi Ohguri (1918-1992). This interesting work opens in an eerie and chilling fashion and employs several novel combinations of instrumental color. It also features some traditional Japanese percussion instruments and demonstrated the stylistic changes in Japanese band scoring in the past several decades. A brief encore of the Japanese folk song Solan Bushi drew a most enthusiastic response from the audience.
The Philharmonic Winds Osakan is celebrating its tenth anniversary, and as the conductor of an adult ensemble that is of the same vintage, I consider it a marvelous level of musical accomplishment that this group has achieved in such a short time. Both the conductor and the ensemble are to be commended for a fine concert, which was well-received by the audience and drew many favorable comments.
Charles P. Conrad