"When I was growing up," guest conductor Alexander Mickelthwate explained, "and studying music in Germany — I'm not kidding — every composer who wasn't German was considered second rate.

"I'm totally serious. When I came to America, it was amazing. I discovered there were some really great (non-German) composers. It was a real eye opener."

It must have been: The program that Mickelthwate put together for the Honolulu Symphony had a Chinese, a Russian, and a Finn, but nary a German.

Seeking an East-West link reflecting Hawai'i's location, Mickelthwate opened the concert with a work by the eminent Chinese composer Tan Dun, whom he met in Los Angeles. The work, which Mickelthwate called "visual music," was "Orchestral Theatre O" — the "O" standing for "original" because it was the first of, and foundation for, four such pieces.

Tan Dun, most famous for his "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" score, painted a vibrant aural mosaic, focusing on tone color and effect more than on melody, rhythm or harmony. Woven from snippets of sound, the music required intense concentration, as musicians contributed their notes, taps, slaps, whispers and shouts on cue.

Especially memorable were Erica Peel's sinuous piccolo solos, which she caressed and bent in an entrancing imitation of Eastern bamboo flutes.

The Russian selection was Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No.1, featuring Honolulu Symphony principal cellist Mark Votapek.

Votapek, with his firm, robust tone, suited the Shostakovich. He integrated well with the orchestra, a critical feature in this piece, where orchestra and cello finish phrases for one another and play off each other's lines.

Throughout, Votapek displayed fiery chords, singing melodies and "digitissimo" technique, his fingers flying up and down the strings. The third movement, labeled "Cadenza" but really more of a solo movement, proved an impressive display, from harmonics to double stops.

Shostakovich's concerto is one of those works that are distinctly better in live performance because the scoring seems to need physical space for the harmonies to inhabit without crowding. Live, the cello part stands out more clearly, and polyphonic lines interweave less densely.

Although Shostakovich wrote the piece for the cello, he included a second prominent solo part for French horn, beautifully played by Wade Butin. In fact, a triumvirate of soloists — Votapek, Butin and clarinetist James Moffitt — repeatedly created lyrical highlights.

The concert climaxed with an exciting reading of the Finnish work Symphony No. 2 by Sibelius, who was "one of those real eye openers" for Mickelthwate.

Before the concert and in introducing the piece, Mickelthwate spent several minutes talking, singing, joking, gesticulating, conducting, trying to explain the structure and his enthusiasm for it.

Mickelthwate's conducting, done without a score, was both appealing and expressive, yet keeping the focus firmly on the music. His interpretations were on the warmer, romantic end of the scale, eliciting a sound that was not especially clean, but was musically alive and flowed smoothly, with a rich, enmeshed texture.

Impressively, Mickelthwate kept the audience's attention throughout the circa 45-minute work, ending the concert amid enthusiastic cheers.

Review