By Lawrence Toppman
Kwamé Ryan and fans of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (CSO) both got a taste of the future last weekend at Belk Theater.
Concertgoers who may have missed his two audition concerts saw him lead his first performance as music director designate. And Ryan took on Brahms and Tchaikovsky, the kind of mainstream composers we’ll hear frequently in the 2024-25 season, now that the CSO has opted for more conservative programming. (Ryan will conduct Brahms’ Requiem in November, in one of only two appearances next season.)
Saturday’s concert began with waves of applause. Symphony president and CEO David Fisk announced that the organization was more than 80 percent of the way toward its goal of raising $50 million for its endowment. Performance Today host Fred Child informed us this concert would be played at some point on his program, heard on public radio stations nationwide (including WDAV, which was broadcasting live Saturday).
Then Ryan came on, a seemingly perennial spring in his step, to the largest ovation. He thanked the CSO for his first gig as music director in an English-speaking country – the first two were in Germany and France – and dug into Wang Jie’s symphonic overture “America the Beautiful.”
The title inevitably recalls Charles Ives’ “Variations on ‘America’,” and Wang’s ending has an Ivesian feel: The main tune marches merrily along, while dissenting sections of the orchestra make themselves heard. But Wang has ideas of her own, and her overture blends urban bustle with the rural flavor of a frantic fiddle solo. Like America itself, her piece has room for many voices. (The Shanghai-raised composer, who’s married to Child, moved to the United States as a college student in 2000 and stayed.)
Then came Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme.” Ryan conducted with the right delicacy, but the reason to sit through this elegant piffle was the solo playing of Sterling Elliott. He blended apt amounts of nobility and sentimental sweetness in Tchaikovsky’s major work for cello and orchestra; his louder passages were rich and full, and his soft ones drew you into the piece further than I’m usually willing to go.
He capped that strong performance with an encore unknown to me: “Truckin’ Through the South,” from Aaron Minsky’s “Ten American Cello Etudes.” Elliott played this dark-hued, almost bluesy etude with beguiling strength and soulfulness.
Ryan capped the evening with the piece that gave us the clearest idea of what to expect from him: Brahms’ First Symphony. The opening movement held yearning, mystery, assertiveness, exultation. The second was more relaxed and easeful than I’m used to, so I listened with new ears. Ditto the brisk third movement, which rolled jauntily past. His fondness for dramatic pauses and decelerated tempos bent the fourth movement slightly out of shape, as it had the second, but he summoned all the life force of the finale in a potent surge.
I had never watched the CSO from the sixth row, and I was able to see Ryan close up. He has dropped traditional maestro garb for a charcoal gray suit. He conducts with his entire body, except for firmly planted feet. He uses no baton, directing with empty hands that frequently take on the Hawaiian “hang loose” position: inner three fingers curled, thumb and pinky thrust out to the sides.
His expressive face has a Bernstein-like pliability, whether intense in serious moments or ecstatic in joyful ones. This could be hamminess in some conductors – that claim was made against Bernstein, though I think unfairly – but the music seems to surge through Ryan like an electric current discharged from his fingertips. I’m glad he’s coming.
Pictured: Kwamé Ryan courtesy of kwameryan.com.