A Fledgling Opus Chamber Orchestra Tests Its Mettle

In four concerts in Zipper Hall at the Colburn School, and in two appearances on the Sunday Live series at the L.A. County Museum of Art this month, conductor Leanna Sterios mounts another mini-season--a fourth--for her Opus Chamber Orchestra. At the first two Zipper performances, Monday and Thursday nights, the fledgling ensemble again showed promise but no special accomplishment.

A competent and ambitious conductor, Sterios put together interesting programs, the first offering Bach’s Third “Brandenburg” Concerto, the Harpsichord Concerto by Martinu and Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto; the second, Stephen Prutsman’s “Jazz Fantasy on B.A.C.H.” for piano and string orchestra, surrounded by Bach’s Cantata 51 and Double Violin Concerto.

All of these were played respectably, if sometimes scrappily, though without the kind of insights or bracing qualities required to make them really memorable.

The quality of the players bodes well. The nine violinists have potential; the principal cello is the ubiquitous Roger Lebow; the wind soloists are mostly strong veterans; the two unfamiliar but outstanding horn players in “Dumbarton Oaks” were Stephanie O’Keefe and Stephanie Stetson.

Prutsman’s “Jazz Fantasy,” heard Thursday with the composer as soloist, grabbed the listener’s attention legitimately. It is a dark canvas, a fantasy of intense emotions, disgruntled harmonies and a few open and gentle aural spaces. Prutsman, who has been greatly admired as soloist with the Pacific Symphony, seems also to be a composer of genuine promise; as pianist, his presence is commanding. One suspects he has a piano concerto waiting in that lively imagination.

Jennifer Paul was the game soloist in Martinu’s breezy, neo-Baroque Harpsichord Concerto (1935) on Monday night, when conductor Sterios had trouble keeping the difficult instrumentation in balance. Blame the composer, perhaps, but clarity suffered.

The other Thursday soloists, violinists Julie Gigante and Richard Altenbach in Bach’s Double Concerto, and soprano Gundula Mueller in the “Jauchzet Gott” cantata, held their own strongly against an instrumental accompaniment determined to outplay itself: orchestrally, loudness dominated.

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Opus Chamber Orchestra concludes its June season in Zipper Hall at the Colburn School of Performing Arts, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A., at 7:30 p.m., Monday and Friday.