OPINION/MUSIC REVIEW

Violinist Lark soars in ‘Sky’ concerto Saturday at Little Rock’s Robinson Center

Violinist Tessa Lark plays the "Sky" concerto written for her by Michael Torke this weekend with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Matthew Kraemer. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Lauren Desberg)
Violinist Tessa Lark plays the "Sky" concerto written for her by Michael Torke this weekend with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Matthew Kraemer. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Lauren Desberg)


Tessa Lark darn near fiddled her fingers off Saturday night at Little Rock's Robinson Center Performance Hall.

The violinist, clad in a florid pantsuit that stood out against the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra players' "concert blacks," enraptured the audience in Michael Torke's bluegrass-focused "Sky" concerto. Guest conductor Matthew Kraemer, music director and principal conductor of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, was on the podium.

Lark is the third of three brilliant violinists on this season's just-completed Masterworks season (following in the wake of Gil Shaham and Shannon Lee).

The piece, written for Lark, and her performance thereof, was no less complex, active, exciting -- or gorgeous -- than the Tchaikovsky Concerto Lee and the orchestra played a couple of weeks ago. And while some symphony patrons may have looked down their noses at a not-quite-classical concerto, it captured the listeners to the point of spontaneous applause at the end of the first two movements and an ovation at the end. That earned them an Appalachian folk tune, "Do Round My Lindy," which Lark sang as sweetly as she played, for an encore.

Kraemer got to show off his conducting chops with the "Symphony No. 9," titled "From the New World," by Antonin Dvorak, with brisk tempos and a few fresh touches to what is all too often an overfamiliar warhorse. There were some odd balance issues, however, with sometimes too much of the lower strings and low brass.

The curtain-raiser, "Ozark Traveler" by Jeremy Crosmer, who as a teenager played in the orchestra's cello section and has made a musical career in Detroit, was a fitting companion to the Torke concerto.

Lark, Kraemer and the orchestra will repeat the program at 3 p.m. today at Robinson, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway. Lark also joins seven members of the orchestra's string section to play Felix Mendelssohn's "Octet" at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Clinton Presidential Center, 1200 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock. For ticket information for both concerts, call (501) 666-1761, Extension 1, or visit ArkansasSymphony.org.


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