By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of May 16-23, 2011
                                                                  Vol. 13, No. 100
          SAN JOSE---If no one is a prophet in his own country, how to explain South Bay pianist Jon Nakamatsu, getting repeated and deserving standing ovations here with the Symphony Silicon Valley?
            Nakamatsu, the incredible outsider,  was back home again, playing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 that had clinched his gold-medal win at the 1997 Van Cliburn Piano Competition. Originally a German teacher out of Sunnyvale, he had come out of total obscurity to win the prize and accelerate on the main track internationally with recitals, chamber music, concertos, and, more recently, collaborations with New York  clarinetist whiz Jon Manasse.
            No sign of fatigue in that Tchaikovsky concerto that Jon N.’s played perhaps a hundred times. It’s fresh, vigorous, emphatic---just listen to those ringing opening chords---and technically precise. Even more significant is the compact pianist’s poetic bent, whether in the rubato of the cadenza or in the languid slow movement, as heard in the near-sold-out California Theatre at the May 15 matinee. This is great, grand Tchaikovsky, far better than the steel-fingered renditions so often foisted off on us in competitions. It is the silvery substance of which future symphony seasons can be made.
            The SSV also offered an unusual world premiere by the Cuban émigré, Paquito D’Rivera, 62. His Cape Cod (Double) Concerto was a classic blend of jazz and Cuban danzón rhythms spotlighting the virtuosic wind player Jon Manasse, with pianist Nakamatsu relegated to a disappointing accompaniment role. Manasse is in the very front ranks of today’s clarinetists, having been principal in both the Met Opera and Ballet Theater. What was astonishing was his prowess at jazz, conjuring up the ghost of the great jazzman from the 1940s, Benny Goodman (who had also excelled at the same contrasting disciplines, even playing as a regular rank-and-filer in the NY Philharmonic one time I heard him). Indeed, D’Rivera’s  “Benny @ 100” movement was right out of the Goodman playbook, give or take a few improvisatory riffs.
            The 27-minute double concerto takes off in deceptive fashion with a languid tuba solo (Tony Clements), but it’s a mere coy and kittenish prelude for Manasse’s dynamic takeover. D’Rivera also offers up a reverie section with a quasi-tango, then an extended tribute to the late Ernesto Lecuona. In one of the gratifying, whimsical touches, a percussionist walks out to center stage with claves (rock-hard wooden sticks) struck to give a muy muy cubano accompaniment right next to the clarinet. A jazz finale, “Chiquita Blues,” is intermittently jaunty-whimsical, then energetic with pointed rhythms, leading to a splashy conclusion full of brass and percussion.
            The work is thoroughly idiomatic, and is far more than a mere vehicle for Manasse’s stunning talent. It is a broad-ranging infectious celebration written for a master. And San Jose resident Nakamatsu, who was given little to do but double others’ parts, looked on approvingly.
            Each of the night’s stars added an encore: Manasse, Gershwin’s “I’ve Got Rhythm” tour de force, and Nakamatsu, Schumann’s “Widmung.”
            Leslie B. Danner, one of a nucleus corps of guest conductors engaged by the SSV, led these works smartly, more successfully than he handled the Stravinsky “Pulcinella” Suite, which not only lacked crispness of rhythms, but also trailed off indecisively at the end.
            Notable orchestral members in the program were Philip Zahorsky on an irreverent comic trombone, Bill Everett with a lyrical contrabass solo (both in “Pulcinella”), Meredith Brown on horn, Jim Dooley on trumpet, Peter Gelfand on cello and Robin Mayforth on violin. The California Theater and the orchestra provide a fully compatible pairing, and the movie-palace décor (in that stunning restoration of a decade ago) furnishes an added fillip for the symphony-goer.
            D’Rivera had attended the May 12 opener of the set and actually did the walk-on percussion role with the claves in the third movement....D'Rivera fans will encounter him in a contrasting venue, as an instrumentalist on recordings such as Yo-Yo Ma's "Obrigado, Brazil." 
            SSV NOTES---About to start its 10^th season in the fall, the SSV has never had a music director, leaving many of the artistic decisions to the musicians themselves. So far, it’s worked, with a good esprit de corps and execution, despite some inconsistent podium guests. However in such musician-directed orchestras such as found all over Europe, difficulties arise when a player of long service and strong friendship bonds exhibits  declining playing skills, rendering a forced departure painful indeed….The 10^th season will start Oct. 1-2, 2011.
            Symphony Silicon Valley, Nakamatsu-Manasse program with conductor Leslie Danner, ending May 15, California Theatre, San Jose. For info: (408) 286-2600, or go online.

         ©Paul Hertelendy 2011
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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