Orchestra News Coverage
May 16, 2007 | NC Wind Orchestra Presents "Time and the Winds" - June 3, 2007 May 13, 2005 | NC Wind Orchestra Concludes Season with Blaze of Glory January 2004 | Belatedly, A Big Berlioz Birthday Bash January 25, 2004 | Votta Has a Midas Touch January 13, 2004 | Leader Marries Brass, Wind Well January 30, 2003 | Votta Evokes UNC Group's Best January 13, 2001 | Regional Music Lovers May 26, 2000 | Copland SaluteVotta Has a Midas Touch
The Herald-Sun
By: Carl J. Halperin
January 25, 2004
In my experience, Chapel Hill-based conductor Mike Votta Jr. can always be counted on to deliver a thoroughly-polished, well-constructed program. In his hands, Votta's métier, band music, bears no resemblance to the squeaking, squawking, out-of-tune cacophony we all remember from high school days. This isn't your father's band, to be sure.
Leading numerous ensembles area-wide, this conductor's hat is frequently tossed into alternative musical rings, but I've never been less than inspired by his ability to grasp the finer points of artistic and stylistic musicalities with the utmost professionalism.
I don't know Votta, but from his music-making, would venture a guess that he may be something of a perfectionist, for everything he approaches is nearly as right as can be. His latest area appearance, several weeks ago at Raleigh's Meymandi Hall -- a further example of this "golden touch" -- once again showed him to be visionary in his approach as musician and leader.
The occasion, the debut pairing of two of Votta's pet projects -- the North Carolina Wind Orchestra playing alongside the Triangle Brass Band -- captured the audience members' interest with stirring performances of a justly-celebrated work, a less well-known one, and, finally, a true rarity.
Votta jumped right in, opening the program with the "famous" piece, Handel's martial "Royal Fireworks Music." It was slightly jarring to hear this normally fully-orchestrated celebratory work minus the strings that anchor it, but the ear quickly acclimated to the slightly reduced sound put out by the ensemble.
Handel's suite was composed in honor of the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 and written for public military band performance on request of King George II, who wished there to be "no fiddles" present. Taking this into account-- although one is by no means accustomed to hearing it played this way -- Votta's "original instruments" account of the music was unquestionably closer to that which Londoners would have heard at its premiere, and for that, it was instructive.
Following this, the work that was new to me -- although its composer was not -- was Florent Schmitt's "Dionysiaques" of 1913.
French by nationality, Schmitt nonetheless took inspiration from Richard Strauss in this work-- employing instruments as diverse as the baryton and euphonium-- for music that is both erotically suggestive and replete with wild musical posturing. I was fascinated by its pseudo-Eastern influences, apparent from the first notes (a wave of "Orientalism" had swept Paris in these years) and by what Votta referred to as its "Noah's Ark" brand of composition, pairing instruments two by two and building on it from that point.
Following intermission, the music of Berlioz, his "Grande Symphonie Funèbre et Triomphale," another work composed for open-air performance, a curious hodge-podge of ideas -- with an extended trombone solo at its center (beautifully crafted by Michael Kris) -- was heard.
As Berlioz's aim was to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 1830 Revolution, and the trombone was associated with religious ceremonies, his thinking can be clearly seen. The work, however, never really takes off, even when it is expertly interpreted, as it was here. It has all the Berliozian fire and sweep one would expect -- the theatrics -- but married to substandard music.
Michael Votta is a local musician we can be justly proud of, for he and his assorted players continually turn out work, this concert included, that is of the highest quality.