They call themselves MISO, but I think MiSO is more accurate. According to their press package, the Miami Symphony Orchestra has been in existence since 1989. Their second director/conductor, Eduardo Marturet, took over in 2006.
I saw them for the first time tonight. I'll tell you what's official, what's inside dope, and what I thought. They claim to have 80 elite musicians, and they bill themselves as "the cultural flagship in Miami." They perform in four auditoria: the Arsht, where I saw them tonight, an auditorium at FIU, the hall where the New World Symphony performs on Lincoln Road, and South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center (SMDCAC), way down US1. I had never heard of them until about two weeks ago.
I went to an unrelated concert at the U of M, and I happened to meet one of their percussionists, who was a spectator, like I was, at the concert. We got to talking, and that's how I found out about MiSO. The dirt is this: MiSO was bogged down for a long time by its original mission: to be an Hispanic orchestra. All the musicians were Hispanic. Clearly, this limited the pool of available musicians, and my acquaintance confided in me that the orchestra was not great. I don't remember if he said they were bad, but he might have. When Marturet, who is a high class conductor, took over, he made it his mission, and the mission of the orchestra, to be good. As best I can tell, "great" was perfectly acceptable. So he stepped up the program, and cycled out the weaker musicians. He replaced them with high quality people. Now, says my acquaintance, MiSO's goal is to be "the resident orchestra of Miami." He considers them, with a certain amount of disappointment and frustration, to be "Miami's best kept secret."
The nexus here is that my acquaintance was such a good ambassador for his orchestra that I decided to try them out. I bought myself a season ticket, which was on sale for half price, and tonight's concert was the season opener.
I want to digress for a moment. A few years ago, I saw the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra at the Arsht, and the guest conductor was Giancarlo Guerrero. Their regular conductor is Franz Welser-Must, who is great. He's a bit low key, somewhat like Michael Tilson Thomas. But he does a fine job. Giancarlo Guerrero has a totally different style. I've never seen a conductor like him, until... He's fabulous. He's all style. He's very enthusiastic, he essentially dances while he conducts, and he is totally engaging, to the audience as well as the orchestra. That is Eduardo Marturet. If you want to have a ton of fun at a symphony orchestra concert, go see Eduardo Marturet and MiSO. You'll smile throughout the concert.
And the orchestra? Every bit as good, and every bit as enthusiastic. Robin Williams was talking about something else in "Death to Smoochy," when he used the phrase "small, but powerful." MiSO all over. Small, but powerful. And it's not just the playing of music. In his introduction to one piece, Marturet gave some explanation, to prepare the audience for a full appreciation of the piece, then he had various musicians who would have leading roles in the piece talk about their parts. It was wonderful. Totally engaging. "Up close and personal." Michael Tilson Thomas on crack, as the kids say. The Cleveland Symphony is bigger than MiSO, but I don't know that they're any better. This was about as pleasing as a symphony orchestra concert could be. And I'd tell you it was about half the price of the Cleveland Symphony, but since I got the half price deal, it was about a quarter of the price.
The program tonight: They opened with Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3. The infamously hard "Rach 3." The soloist was a Russian guy who does his thing in the NY area, plus lots of travelling. And he's young. My percussionist friend says this pianist was his idea, a friend of his from his own NY days. He convinced Marturet to give him a shot. Reportedly, Marturet is now smitten. So am I. He's a bit showy and loves sequins (on his tuxedo and on his shoes), and he plays like a dream. Just great.
Then, after the intermission, they played an interesting Sibelius "Symphony" (four movements somehow compressed into one), followed by Kodaly dances, which included the solos and other features that were described by Marturet and his musicians.
I don't know what more to say. The choice of pieces was unusual and completely satisfying, the musicianship left nothing to be desired, and Marturet is spell-binding. Whatever they could have wanted him to do for the orchestra, he did it. All that's left is for people to get it, and come to the concerts. They couldn't make them any better. And somebody knows how good this is. The Arsht doesn't fool around with what they put in the Knight Concert Hall. That's where I heard the Cleveland Symphony.
Four of the nine concerts for this year are in the Arsht. The others are all split, so you have a choice between two venues on successive nights. When my choice included SMDCAC, I chose the other venue. Not that there's anything wrong with SMDCAC; it's just a long way to go. If the choice included the New World auditorium, I chose that one for the same reason: it's shorter than going to FIU. Do yourself a favor. Check 'em out.
No comments:
Post a Comment