Cache Chamber Orchestra goes Russian
A 15-year-old girl became a concert pianist Sunday night at the Kent Concert Hall.
Hyde Park’s Lauren Belliston played the third movement of Dmitri Kabalewsky’s “Piano Concerto No. 3,” using nearly every key on the piano while the Cache Chamber Orchestra’s 70 volunteer musicians backed her up.
“She has a special talent,” said Paradise resident Gayle Forsberg, whose sister Jeneile Tams played clarinet at the performance. “That was worth coming to the concert just for that.”
Conductor Robert Frost said Sunday marked the first time the Cache Chamber Orchestra featured a pianist as a soloist.
Frost, who also taught school for the Cache County School District for many years, told the audience that calling it a “chamber” orchestra was really stretching the definition.
“That term, chamber orchestra, just doesn’t quite fit,” Frost said. “We should change the name to Cache Valley Symphony.”
The orchestra, which played in December and will perform again April 25, tackled the Russian Romantics, including Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, Wassilij Sergejewitsch Kalinnikov and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Frost noted that its pieces require a full-scale orchestra, especially the finale of Kalinnikov’s “Symphony No. 1.”
In fact, all of the composers, except for Chicago-born Robert Muczynski, were Russian.
Frost said it just turned out that way. He really wanted to do the Kalinnikov piece and Mussorgsky’s “The Great Gates of Kiev.” Then he found out the young pianist was doing a Russian work, also. So, after adding Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise,” he finally threw in a non-Russian piece.
“It’s very contemporary,” Frost said of Muczynski’s “Dovetail Overture.” “It was written about 40 years ago.”
Frost enjoys doing Romantic music with such a big orchestra, because he said the compositions have such a “huge orchestral sound that developed through the Romantic period.”
The “huge orchestral sound” was especially evident in Kalinnikov symphony, with a triumphant ending that brought loud applause.
“Well, what do you think?” Frost asked the audience seconds after the final chord. “Think it ought to be Cache Valley Symphony now?”
The crowd cheered in approval.
Although the music was grand and sweeping, it was also calming for one USU student.
“My mind has been soothed,” Natalie Burtenshaw, a junior in liberal arts, said. “It’s like Mentholatum for the mind. I feel clear and soothed.”
Frost, who owns his own studio and plays the bass clarinet, is also a published composer.
“I have published compositions for orchestral music for young and intermediate ages,” Frost said.
He is looking forward to the April concert, which will feature cellist Alexist Hoggard and violinist Konling Shen.
-marklaroc@cc.usu.edu