Music director Steven Schick launched his fourth season and La Jolla Symphony’s 57th with the ambitious program “Color,” played Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 30 and 31, at Mandeville Auditorium at the University of California, San Diego. Schick marshaled 114 musicians, including symphony players, piano soloist Noriko Kawai, color organ and video projectionist Ross Karre and members of La Jolla Symphony and Chorus (LJS&C), to perform Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to “Candide,” Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus, The Poem of Fire, Opus 60 and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D Major (“The Titan”). A renowned percussion performer and pedagogue and champion of contemporary music who teaches at UCSD, Schick is known for his daring programming, which seems a positive fit for inquisitive audiences longing for something beyond the norm. He has also become a popular podium figure during this tenure with LJS&C, a volunteer orchestra and chorus comprising members of the community, teachers, scientists, students and working musicians. When such a program as “Color” is planned, the question of whether the amateur orchestra lives up to Schick’s extreme belief and audience hope is part of the allure. It’s akin to rooting for the home team, and as it was, hope outstripped execution in the program. All three composers led complicated lives and wrote complicated music, although Bernstein’s sunny Overture to “Candide” propelled the opening with vigor and a sunny disposition, showing off the magnificent tone of the cellos. Better known for his solo piano works, Scriabin had his otherworldly side. He saw music in colors, so he conceived a color organ for this work. Problem: Such an instrument did not yet exist. With his “instrument” (color projected upon acoustical panels behind the orchestra), Karre attempted a glimpse inside the composer’s mind. Most pleasurable was the Scherzo movement, which employs the gracious Austrian dance known as the Ländler (think “The Sound of Music”). Also charming was the section suggesting gypsy and klezmer music. The timpani was ecstatic and the strings broke one’s heart with their rich, romantic rubato. LJS&C returns to Mandeville at 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 6, in a not-to-be-missed performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s rarely performed “Missa Solemnis” with orchestra, chorus and soloists Natalie Mann Ava Baker Liss, Tom Oberjat and Tom Corbell. National Public Radio’s Jan Swafford said of the work, “The Missa Solemnis may be the greatest work never heard.” For information and tickets, visit www.lajollasymphony.com or call (858) 534-4637.
