ROB DAVIDSON
From left at front, Heather J. Buchanan, soprano Felicia Moore, mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor and Xian Zhang at NJPAC in Newark, April 4.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s grand symphonic-choral masterwork made a powerful cornerstone of New Jersey Symphony’s “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Xian Zhang” concerts, April 3-6 at NJPAC in Newark and The State Theatre in New Brunswick.
Music director Zhang found a fine balance between the profound Beethovenian extremes of drama and tenderness, leading the musicians and The Montclair State University Chorale in a joyous version that was carefully calibrated and symmetrical. And in Billy Childs’ evocative saxophone concerto Diaspora, featuring guest saxophonist Steven Banks, she complemented the work’s vast expressiveness and emotional intensity with spirited musical language.
ROB DAVIDSON
Gregory D. McDaniel at NJPAC.
Gregory D. McDaniel, the Symphony’s 2024–25 Colton Conducting Fellow, established the program’s bright tone with Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s crowd-pleasing Polonaise taken from the opulent Act III scene of his opera Eugene Onegin (1879), based on Pushkin’s verse novel. The work was last performed by the orchestra in August by McDaniel’s predecessor, Jessica Rivero Altarriba, at the “Classical Favorites: Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and More!” sampler at NJPAC.
From his stylish and dashing podium language to his embellished slip-on loafers, McDaniel captured the music’s high-spirited drama and dazzling pageantry. Strong collaborative playing by the musicians brought out the Russian composer’s bright, crisp textures and energetic rhythms.
The Symphony has never been afraid to show their debt to tradition while supporting new music by underrepresented artists, and they did it reverently with Diaspora. A jazz pianist and composer who straddles the classical and jazz repertoires, Childs composed the work specifically for Banks in 2022. He has described it as “a symphonic poem which strives to chronicle the paradigm of the forced Black American diaspora,” and his manuscript is informed by his personal perspective as a Black man in America.
Three movements take thematic cues from poems by Black poets — Nayyirah Waheed’s “Africa’s Lament,” Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die” and Maya Angelou’s “And Still I Rise.” The piece is played without pause; its progression was felt through the vast moods captured in Childs’ clear and easy-flowing musical language. For example, harmonic shifts into dissonance represented hardship and melancholy. A battle between slave traders and future slaves was depicted in triplets that rippled through sections.
ROB DAVIDSON
Steven Banks at NJPAC.
The 22-minute marathon requires switching between two saxophones; Banks came onto the stage carrying both soprano and alto. Even after the intense, fully committed performance that I saw, April 3 at NJPAC, he gave a generous encore of The Lord’s Prayer by Albert H. Malotte, written in a solo arrangement for soprano sax.
Childs couldn’t have found a better muse than Banks, who remained focused and steady throughout, with an effortless mastery of both saxophones’ intricate keywork. He began Part 1 with an unaccompanied soprano soliloquy in taut, tightly woven phrases. The bright mood, played with electric energy, turned expressionistic and emotive in Part 2 with languid, extended solo cadenzas. Part 3 culminated in a wistful, gospel-style duet (on alto sax) with piano in which Banks moved from center stage to the piano at the back; the effect was intimate and collaborative. The work ended satisfyingly, with a final uplifting tutti in the form of a march, followed by Banks with a showstopping high note and virtuosic speed run.
Zhang was an attentive accompanist. The two had performed the piece last week in a series of concerts with the Seattle Symphony; she will step in as music director there in September. The orchestra excelled at highlighting the score’s vivid colors, which included complex percussion and padded violins for additional brightness, color and richness.
Though Beethoven’s towering Ninth was written in a different era and circumstance than Diaspora, and comes with a very different sound, it inspired similar feelings of wonder.
The German composer’s final and only vocal symphony, written from 1822 to 1824 when he was already deaf, is most famous for its choral finale, adapted from the 18th-century “An die Freude” (“Ode to Joy”) poem by Friedrich Schiller that broadcasts a message of unity and brotherhood, togetherness and community.
ROB DAVIDSON
From left at front, Xian Zhang, tenor Issachah Savage and baritone Reginald Smith Jr. at NJPAC.
Interpretations range from meditative and spiritual, to sweet and lyrical, to thunderous and terrifying. Zhang — who has performed it frequently throughout her career, particularly in Europe as music director of Sinfonica di Milano (2009-2016), where the masterwork is traditionally rolled out for New Year’s celebrations — put less emphasis on the emotional richness and gravity, and focused more on the composer’s meticulous nuances and details of expressive tone. Taut, tidy tempo and structure made for an intelligent, layered and well-balanced reading.
An earthbound and unrelenting Allegro of carefully gradated color ceded to a buoyant second movement scherzo with quicksilver strings and melodious timpani.
The Adagio is notoriously tricky to conduct, with its celestial, transcendent moments. While Zhang was alert to its elegance and breadth, a long pause between the third and fourth movements to allow the four vocalists to be seated (as opposed to seating them at the beginning of the work) took away some of the dramatic impact and architecture.
A vocally supreme and charismatic quartet brought authoritative weight and tonality. Soprano Felicia Moore’s rich, dramatic color blended exquisitely with mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor’s darker and earthier tones. Baritone Reginald Smith Jr.’s exemplary expression and penetrating timbre made for rich contrasts against tenor Issachah Savage’s sweet and supple lyricism.
Under the direction of Heather J. Buchanan, The Montclair State University Chorale, a mixed chorus of young student voices, gave a fresher, lighter, softer sound palette than traditionally heard with the Beethoven-Schiller pairing. Schiller’s “Freude” anthem of the finale still came across with its important, timely message of unity and togetherness, much needed here and now: Joy and hope can always be found.
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