Breckenridge Gets Directed in Style!

JoAnn Falletta is awesome!  For the few hundred attendees at last night's concert with the National Repertory Orchestra (NRO) in Breckenridge, what occurred on stage matched beautifully what was going on in the heavens.  While a thunderstorm raged outside, and the rains came down non-stop, JoAnn Falletta passionately lead around 85 young students of music through an absolutely breathtaking, heart banging rendition of Mahler's Fifth Symphony.  Wow! 

Five movements in an hour and 15 minutes without an intermission.  The musicians were intense, equisitely attentive, breathlessly alive!  And JoAnn . . . well, JoAnn provided her own brand of animation.  She actually jumped in place a number of times at particularly dramatic points, getting the emphasis she desired.  I watched one young girl in the back row hold a note on the French Horn, where hers was the only note being played in the auditorium, quiet, long and lingering.  And I saw her turn red, but continue to hold the note - until it was picked up by another home, and she actually gasped for breath (quietly, of course). 

But, it was clear these students would do anything for Falletta.  They meant every note.  They breathed life into every measure.  And they kept the audience enraptured for the full time of the concert.  When it was over, when one of the most dramatic, thrundering sequences came to a dramatic and exacting end, the audience leapt up enmass to clap.  The applause continued for five minutes, ten minutes, and more, and JoAnn came back onstage for one encore and then another, singling out key players, then recognizing sections and finally, the entire orchestra of giddy, beaming musicians. 

And we shook our heads in wonder, and mingled and shared our awe at the experience.  It was truly great.  I'm not a student of music, nor a reviewer, but I do know what I felt.  And it was mirrored by everyone in that tented, Riverwalk of an auditorium along the banks of the Blue River in Breckenridge. 

At a reception after the concert, a friend asked her if her arms got tired ("No, I'm always too excited to notice.").  And I asked if she might really prefer to stay here in Summit County instead of going back to her home in Buffalo, New York ("Now, I really couldn't say that, now could I?" - with a twinkle in her eye.)  She was as gracious a host as she was a passionate conductor.  Let's just hope she can come back next year.  That new group of students will love to work with her.  And our ears and hearts will be happy. 

One thing is sure.  Many of her current protoges will achieve positions on national orchestras, at least in part, due to her efforts.