The Amarillo Symphony, under the baton of Conductor George Jackson, inaugurated its centenary year with an outdoor evening concert at the impressive ball park (Hodgetown) and featuring bravura performances by the symphony, and guests: the Opera Cowgirls; Eric Barry and Randall King.
The concert was a broad-spectrum blast of patriotism and culture ranging from pop to high with hybrid variegations. A congenial shirt-sleeved crowd found the friendly ambience of Hodgetown conducive to a night of soaring national pride, unmatched musical virtuosity and stunning vocal and actual pyrotechnics (there were fireworks!)
In other words, there was something for everyone, and Mother Nature cooperated by turning down the oven and clearing the skies.
Eric Barry, called the “Panhandle Pavarotti” for his glass-shattering operatic tenor, set the tone with a spine tingling national anthem as the Amarillo Symphony played John Stafford Smith’s arrangement and the West Texas Warbirds did a colored contrail flyover. Later Barry would thrill with O Sole Mio and Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA, with everyone standing and singing!
Three works by the Symphony plugged into the western and ethnic heritage of the area: John Williams, The Cowboys Overture; Aaron Copland, Hoedown from Rodeo; “Arturo Marquez, Conga del Fuego Nuevo.
The last work was completed in 2005 and pulses with a Latin rhytym from the downbeat. It’s high octane music until the middle of the work when the piece seems to take about a one-minute siesta, then the original theme reprises. The piece is all the more interesting because Marquez combines the Conga, a Cuban carnival dance, with the new fire, a pre-Columbian Meso-American ritual.
One work chosen by Jackson bore no relationship to Americana: Russlan and Ludmilla Overture by Glinka, from the opera of the same name by the composer and a poem by Pushkin. The downbeat signals a string explosion that rarely lets up. The opera is rarely performed, but the overture is done frequently, most often as an audience pick-me-up. It might serve as a good antidote to Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder.
Frenzied strings maintain their intensity until delving into a more melodic strain that is only ephemeral. Wind and percussion metronomically pulse a rhythm before the strings (it’s only 4+ minutes long) frantically finish, like Beethoven on steroids.
Once again the Opera Cowgirls graced a Panhandle audience with their incomparable capacity of making high culture highly relatable. One reviewer ventured that if one tried crossing the voices of Renee Fleming and Elizabeth Leonard with Tammy and Reba you have some conception of the Opera Cowgirls.
Founded by Caitlin McKechney, the singers who also include Amarillo’s own Sarah Beckham-Turner, along with Maria Lindsey and Jessica Sandidge, have returned several times since their initial concert in March, 2019. Their frequent appearances – they will be at WTAMU later this month-show that these operatic professionals’ ability to down-home their talent transcends social strata and certainly resonates with folk here in the Panhandle.
If purists are outraged by this approach, they falsify an alleged desecration and need to understand that the goal of any artist is to expand both outreach and contact. And reach out they did, with their own Pearlsnaps and Pearls and Country Carmen, with orchestration arranged by Adam Levovitz and The Tennessee Waltz arranged by James Beckham.
And even Wagner made it into the Opera Cowgirls evening program: the Valkyrian Rebel Yell was hard to miss!
Larry Lang, executive director of the Amarillo Symphony, led the Amarillo Symphony along with the Opera Cowgirls and Eric Barry the Armed Forces Salute. Colonel Lang conducted five Air Force bands in his twenty-nine year career, including the premier band of the service in the DC area, altogether serving five presidents. We thank him, and all of the veterans, who stood when their service song was featured, for their service.
One wonders how many of the vets heard their service anthem sung by professional opera singers? The five formed vocal ordnance the equivalent of a battery of 155mm howitzers: it definitely got everyone’s attention!
Randall King took control of the stage with a quintessential country suave and an effortless vocal charm. Hailing from Hereford (three of the six solo performers were local!), his sound is unadorned and authentic, a smooth lyricism which carries a message to which all in the Panhandle can relate as “Been there, done that!”
King has been called part of a new crop of modern traditionalists in country music. Affiliated with Warner, his meteoric rise in the viciously competitive world of country music attests to its resonance with listener’s heads and hearts.
This was high country from the high country, but which formed just part of an evening which included something for everyone.
Thanks go out to the Amarillo Symphony, conductors George Jackson and Larry Lang, the Opera Cowgirls, Eric Barry and Randall King for kicking off this centennial year in an epic fashion.
We in Amarillo can take pride in our abundant local talent shown by our amazing symphony and soloists, and assert, in the Amarillo Symphony’s 100th year,
Keep Amarillo Artsy!
Keep Austin Weird!
Keep Lubbock in the Rear View Mirror!!!
Keep Amarillo Artsy 