REVIEW: Anchorage Symphony "Echoes"

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Posted: October 25, 2008 - 11:01 pm

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Echoes: Hawaiian and Alaska Native dancers in rehearsal. Photo, Erik Hill.

By MIKE DUNHAM

Anchorage music lovers who missed Saturday night's premiere of "Echoes" by Anchorage Symphony Orchestra conductor Randall Craig Fleischer should try to make the second and (at the moment) last performance at 4 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 26).

"Echoes" is not so much a piece of music as a multimedia entertainment, featuring Native Alaskan and Hawaiian singers and dancers, "Lower 48 Indian" Big Drum, a concertina, sound effects and visual projections. The program notes suggest that the work has an educational component - i.e. demonstrating the link between New England whalers and their journeys to the Pacific and Arctic oceans. But what had most of the Atwood Hall crowd's attention was the sheer spectacle of the thing.

It opens with big columns of sound, the bass drum, brass charging upward in octaves, all highly cinematic, especially as an opening video shows landscapes, swans, an eagle and breaching whales. This is followed by music depicting storms lashing the wooden sailing ships of yore, giving way to vocalists in period costumes singing a traditional chantey, "We're homeward bound from the Arctic realm rolling out for old Mau-i."

In a third section - Fleischer calls them "scenes" - we see slides of Yup'ik and Inupiat villages (you may recognize someone; I did). A Dena'ina song pays tribute to the Anchorage area's indigenous people; leading to several dancers in kuspuks. Two drummers play Inupiat style (sticks striking from the bottom) then switch to Yup'ik style (from the top) for a traditional song "Pulling From Within." This song, which can be heard in a more original form on a CD available at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, is an excellent choice for Fleischer's treatment, which is to amplify the tune, overlay it with a supporting architecture of horns and strings, and even add a little counterpoint.

Anchorage Hawaiian dancers then perform an ancient and modern hula, making this the first time I've ever heard a ukulele - two of 'em actually - play with an orchestra. This was the section that could use the most attention to miking and balance; the voices were too "hot" to start and, after the orchestra joined in, the Hawaiian instruments were swamped.

This was less of a problem elsewhere, though the Big Drum and vocals in the "Sneak Up Dance," said to be a Massachusetts song, drowned out some of the nuance in the orchestra.

In the finale, the chantey chorus reprised "Old Mau-i," went into a sailors' dance and all forces came on to perform simultaneously in a rousing conclusion. The crowd gave a big standing ovation. Some would have liked to hear more - a repeat of the finale, perhaps. They'll just have to come on Sunday.

Also on the program, a fine reading of Mendelssohn's "Hebrides" Overture, thanks to particularly good ensemble playing from the strings. The cellos' introduction of the major theme was some of the loveliest music I've heard from them.

Respighi's "The Birds" continued the nature theme of the program. The wind soloists were delightful. Halfway through, however, the strings began to loose their earlier groove. By the time Copland's "Appalachian Spring" Suite closed out the first half, the muddiness had grown more pronounced, made more tedious by the often slow - nearly tempoless - pace of many of the measures.

But the first and last pieces on the bill make this a concert worth checking out. If you do, tell me what you think in the comment section below.

Tickets should be available at the box office; the Saturday crowd was healthy, but not sold out.

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