RSNO Rachmaninov Two Usher Hall Edinburgh 17th May 2024 Review
RSNO and SNJO West Side Story/Rhapsody in Blue at the Usher Hall this evening was a fusion of two musical styles, classical and jazz, and although the RSNO has over the years performed on stage with a wide variety of musical performers from many different musical genres, this is their first collaboration with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra.
If there were any problems in combining classical and jazz music tonight it was not a performance one but a sheer logistics one, as even though the Usher Hall stage is a large one, trying to fit a 15 piece jazz orchestra and a 75 piece symphony orchestra was pushing the available space for musicians and their instruments to its limits.
Although that fusion of classical and jazz was running through all of the music this evening, it is fair to say that the first half of tonight’s musical programme with the RSNO/SNJO on stage together was the one that took us furthest into that jazz zone and perhaps pushed some classical music lovers a little outside of their normal comfort zones, and hopefully some found much to explore in this new soundscape.
I have to say maybe at this point in this review that, as I have been reviewing for both the RSNO and the SNJO for some years now, both are in very different ways two of my favourite orchestras, particularly as both are always pushing their own musical boundaries and always willing to explore and embrace new ideas. In some ways, a combination of both on stage together was a perfect evening of music for me.
Classical music and Jazz have been musical admirers and friends for a very long time now with each giving and taking much from the other and along the way combining and often creating something new and wonderful as a result, so it is appropriate that the music tonight featured some of the great composers of their time who were willing to make these cross-overs, often to the disapproval of contemporaries on either side who were entrenched in the superiority of one musical form over another.
Opening the music tonight was a work from 1927 and a composition by Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley, Black and Tan Fantasy to be followed by another Duke Ellington work, this time his Grieg arr. Ellington In The Hall of the Mountain King.
The final part of the pre-interval music featured two more very definitely “Jazz world” works. Firstly, Bernstein arr. Florian Ross West Side Story Suite. Leonard Bernstein’s original score for this musical is quite rightly seen by many people as one of the most important works created in the 20th century and here, long-time associate of the SNJO and arranger of so many works for them, Florian Ross, has again created something special, and the pleasure on many of the faces of both the RSNO and SNJO musicians in exploring this work together was alone worth watching.
The final music with the SNJO was Gershwin arr. Tommy Smith Rhapsody in Blue (Extended version). Tommy Smith as well as being a world class saxophonist and director of the SNJO has an apparently never-ending inquisitiveness about many different styles of music, and the opportunity to arrange this classic for both orchestras was obviously an opportunity that he was going to make the best of. Helping bring his vision to life was long friend and musical collaborator, pianist Makoto Ozone.
I last saw Makoto Ozone performing with the SNJO in 2018 and then, as now, his work is always impressive and he is one of only a few world class pianists that are as happy performing both the works of jazz and classical composers across the world. A mention needs to go to Peter Johnstone too for his work on piano with the SNJO before Makoto’s performance.
The second half of this evening’s music featured no SNJO line-up but Alyn Cosker was still there on drums, working, as in the first half, with the percussionists of the RSNO. Classical Jazz purists may have felt on firmer and maybe quieter ground here, but Herrmann Suite from Vertigo and Bernstein Symphonic Dances from West Side Story definitely still had those jazz vibes, and conductor Bertie Baigent ensured that that melting pot of musical styles was well and truly stirred.
At the end of it all, tonight’s collaboration between the RSNO and SNJO proved one thing- that music is music and that, in the end, everyone is (well in Western music at least) working from the same basic building blocks. The book of music may be the same, but the chapters that can be written in it are infinitely variable.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
If there were any problems in combining classical and jazz music tonight it was not a performance one but a sheer logistics one, as even though the Usher Hall stage is a large one, trying to fit a 15 piece jazz orchestra and a 75 piece symphony orchestra was pushing the available space for musicians and their instruments to its limits.
Although that fusion of classical and jazz was running through all of the music this evening, it is fair to say that the first half of tonight’s musical programme with the RSNO/SNJO on stage together was the one that took us furthest into that jazz zone and perhaps pushed some classical music lovers a little outside of their normal comfort zones, and hopefully some found much to explore in this new soundscape.
I have to say maybe at this point in this review that, as I have been reviewing for both the RSNO and the SNJO for some years now, both are in very different ways two of my favourite orchestras, particularly as both are always pushing their own musical boundaries and always willing to explore and embrace new ideas. In some ways, a combination of both on stage together was a perfect evening of music for me.
Classical music and Jazz have been musical admirers and friends for a very long time now with each giving and taking much from the other and along the way combining and often creating something new and wonderful as a result, so it is appropriate that the music tonight featured some of the great composers of their time who were willing to make these cross-overs, often to the disapproval of contemporaries on either side who were entrenched in the superiority of one musical form over another.
Opening the music tonight was a work from 1927 and a composition by Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley, Black and Tan Fantasy to be followed by another Duke Ellington work, this time his Grieg arr. Ellington In The Hall of the Mountain King.
The final part of the pre-interval music featured two more very definitely “Jazz world” works. Firstly, Bernstein arr. Florian Ross West Side Story Suite. Leonard Bernstein’s original score for this musical is quite rightly seen by many people as one of the most important works created in the 20th century and here, long-time associate of the SNJO and arranger of so many works for them, Florian Ross, has again created something special, and the pleasure on many of the faces of both the RSNO and SNJO musicians in exploring this work together was alone worth watching.
The final music with the SNJO was Gershwin arr. Tommy Smith Rhapsody in Blue (Extended version). Tommy Smith as well as being a world class saxophonist and director of the SNJO has an apparently never-ending inquisitiveness about many different styles of music, and the opportunity to arrange this classic for both orchestras was obviously an opportunity that he was going to make the best of. Helping bring his vision to life was long friend and musical collaborator, pianist Makoto Ozone.
I last saw Makoto Ozone performing with the SNJO in 2018 and then, as now, his work is always impressive and he is one of only a few world class pianists that are as happy performing both the works of jazz and classical composers across the world. A mention needs to go to Peter Johnstone too for his work on piano with the SNJO before Makoto’s performance.
The second half of this evening’s music featured no SNJO line-up but Alyn Cosker was still there on drums, working, as in the first half, with the percussionists of the RSNO. Classical Jazz purists may have felt on firmer and maybe quieter ground here, but Herrmann Suite from Vertigo and Bernstein Symphonic Dances from West Side Story definitely still had those jazz vibes, and conductor Bertie Baigent ensured that that melting pot of musical styles was well and truly stirred.
At the end of it all, tonight’s collaboration between the RSNO and SNJO proved one thing- that music is music and that, in the end, everyone is (well in Western music at least) working from the same basic building blocks. The book of music may be the same, but the chapters that can be written in it are infinitely variable.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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