Broken foot can’t stop stellar violinist

Canadian violinist Kerson Leong recently broke his left foot. So, clad in a boot and using crutches, he crossed the stage of Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall on Saturday night and soloed in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and conductor Geoffrey Robson— from a chair.

It didn’t seem to limit his incredible performance in any noticeable way. Sitting, standing or standing on his head, Leong, the second of the orchestra’s two “Artists of Distinction” this season, produced what for me will be the gold standard going forward for this masterwork.

Leong, in addition to handling the piece’s not-insignificant technical demands (it’s not the flashiest of concertos, but it has its demands) displayed just about every possible nuance, and his collaboration with the orchestra, which, as always, stepped up in support, was masterful indeed. The standing ovation earned the audience an encore: a movement from Eugene Ysaye’s solo violin Sonata No. 4.

The first half of the program featured two gorgeous, short, 21st-century, American-composed tone poems with historical roots:

▪ “The Wind and Petit Jean” by Christopher Theofanidis, which the orchestra commissioned and performed in 2014 and which Theofanidis revised last year. (The orchestra is making a recording, so there were microphones all over the place and there was no entry into the hall while the performance was taking place — something the orchestra should consider doing as an ongoing policy.)

▪ “Halcyon Sun” by Jonathan Bailey Holland, commissioned to celebrate the opening of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, an exercise in depicting light in various forms, with a second movement reminiscent of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” and a last movement reminiscent of Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.”

Leong, Robson and the orchestra reprise the program at 3 p.m. today at Robinson, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway. Leong and orchestra members will also perform Franz Schubert’s Octet in a River Rhapsodies concert, 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Clinton Presidential Center, 1200 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock. Ticket information is available by calling (501) 6661761, ext. 1, or online at arkansassymphony.org.