A feast for eyes and ears
THERE WAS so much to see at the weekend concert by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Jamaica (POJ) that you could have enjoyed it even if you were deaf. I refer not only to the beauty of the venue, the grounds of The University of the West Indies, Mona – still pretty green, in spite of the drought – and, specifically, the colour-filled University Chapel.
But the visual delights many have been commenting on were the disciplined playing of the black-andwhite clad, 40-odd-strong ensemble and the lively conducting of the director, Franklin E. Halliburton. Away from a podium, he is as staid as any of his fellow attorneys-at-law; but a baton in his hand and musicians in front of him apparently transform him into a dancer as well as a choreographer.
Andrew Ho, the emcee, jokingly said that he understood that the National Dance Theatre Company wanted to get some of Halliburton’s dance moves. On Saturday night, he warmed up with the opening number, the spirited Overture of Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen. By the time the evening ended two and a half hours later, with Jon Williams’ masterpiece, Marley Symphony, he was as hot as the flames of a house on fire and as energetic.
The second item, Tomaso Albioni’s Adagio in G minor, was much calmer, appropriately so, as it was dedicated to the late Noel Peck, a founding member of the POJ and a violin and string tutor. On the organ was guest soloist Archie Dunkley.
Compositions 3 and 4, both by Mozart, continued the alternating of the exciting and the soothing.The former feeling was induced by the overture of the opera The Marriage of Figaro, the latter by the Adagio from Concerto in A major, which featured masterful clarinet playing by the soloist, Rafael Salazar.
Formerly a lecturer at the Edna Manley College’s School of Music, Salazar is now the director of music
of the Jamaica Defence Force. He was one of a number of musicians from the JDF and the JCF, a fact that gave us a glimpse of another side of our two “Forces.”
At the time they were asked to identify themselves, so were those who had been taught by master violinist Stephen Woodham, who has been leading the Immaculate Conception Symphony Orchestra for decades. About eight persons, male and female, stood.
Many of them were quite young, perhaps two generations younger
than the older members of the POJ. The variety in ages, twinned with the high quality of the musicianship, make one hopeful that the POJ will be around for a long time.
Contributing to the variety of the concert’s first half were solos by oboist Althea Neblett and pianist Stephen Shaw-Naar (both playing Robert Schumann); a Latin-flavoured composition, Danzon No. 2, by Arturo Marquez; and Radetzky March, Op 228, a military march by the “waltz king”, Johann Strauss. Conducted by Salazar, it included occasional on-the-beat clapping by the audience.
The second half could be called the Jamaican half. It began with the orchestra playing Almighty Protect, a dancehall-style arrangement by Jon Williams based on Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, the “New World Symphony”. An earlier form of Jamaican music, mento, was introduced in the next item, Peter Ashbourne’s lively Jamaica Folk. Comprising snatches of several or our folk tunes, it was played by the quartet of violinists Gabriel Walters and Dayna Palmer, Jovani Williams (viola) and Emily Elliott (cello).
Next up was Albert Shaun Hird’s arrangement of Australian composer Arthur Benjamin’s 1930s short piece Jamaica Rumba (in which you hear the melody of our popular Mango Walk). It is Benjamin’s best-known work, perhaps because it is featured in the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much.
The father-and-son team of Jon (as arranger) and Jovani Williams (as violinist) contributed to the beautiful patriotic numbers I Saw My Land and I Pledge My Heart, the penultimate items. A well-deserved standing ovation followed the close of the powerful Marley Symphony.
The audience’s show of appreciation answered Ho’s final admonition to them, “I hope you had a bellyful.”