By Mel Wilhoit
Correspondent
The Chattanooga Symphony & Opera’s version of “Star Search” continued Thursday evening at the Tivoli Theatre as Maestro Morihiko Nakahara ascended the podium.
Currently serving as music director of the South Carolina Philharmonic, Nakahara is the latest candidate to replace exiting Music Director Robert Bernhardt.
The evening’s program focused on music inspired by William Shakespeare, opening with Mendelssohn’s “Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Today this would be the equivalent of film music as the composer provided support for entrances, dances, fanfares and underscoring for dialogue. Nakahara led his forces in a very serviceable performance of this famous work.
In 1944, William Walton composed a film score for Lawrence Olivier’s production of “Henry V,” intended to bolster the British war effort. While the composer viewed his film scores as musical stepchildren, the suite from this film — arranged by someone else — has gained a following with its cinematic-sounding, neo-Tudor martial and royal flourishes. The orchestra responded enthusiastically to its leader, performing many difficult passages with ease.
When Serge Prokofiev’s attempts to compose a ballet on the subject of “Romeo and Juliet” proved unsuccessful, he adapted his work into two suites from which Maestro Nakahara selected 11 sections for this concert. Unlike the first half of the program in which the orchestra struggled to produce a clean ensemble, the second half opened with a unified sound that alternated between acerbic and gossamer outpourings.
The playing was consistently sensitive and technically impressive as the augmented orchestra — with more woodwinds including a saxophone — turned in a sterling performance that was nothing less than an orchestral tour de force.
The concert will be repeated tonight at 8.