Violinist Noah Geller steps up to soloist role during Kansas City Symphony performance

An undaunted audience braved the foul weather to see the Kansas City Symphony’s Classical Series opening concert for 2017 on Friday in Helzberg Hall, the Kauffman Center lit up in red to honor the Chiefs’ playoff bid. Guest conductor Cristian Măcelaru was likewise undaunted for a program of defiant celebration with concert master Noah Geller taking the soloist’s place in Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2.

The orchestra had an energetic start with a work from Bartók’s friend and compatriot Zoltán Kodály, his Concerto offering showy moments for every instrument in detailed, intricate writing. Măcelaru balanced the boisterous sections with the mysterious, though at the start a push for tempo and volume sacrificed perfectly clean delivery. After a gratifying low strings feature with solo from cellist Mark Gibbs, the work ramped back up, the voices sharing the thematic material to build a line in a tremendous force, ending with a triumphant tutti fortissimo statement.

Bartók’s concerto also showed off the players’ prowess, with Geller leading. The work is a maze of surprises with angular lines pressing forward then spreading into pliant melodies, delicate harmonic slides releasing as the full ensemble ripped and roared, the orchestra supporting the soloist one moment with responsive statements and grooving rhythms, then goading him the next with vicious pizzicato or stark chords.

Geller commanded the work with innate sensitivity and muscular drive. His virtuosic cadenza was a dense, terse sequence of double stops and complex runs. A small smile appeared when he met the fragile combination of celesta and harp for a perfect connection and a much larger one at the work’s completion, the audience giving him a standing ovation for the impressive performance. It was immensely satisfying to witness Geller’s familiar presence in a different but convincing role.

Lastly, Măcelaru led the ensemble in Antonín Dvořák’s festive Symphony No. 5 with clear, animated direction, though he could have demanded more of the pianissimos. Dvořák played with contrasting treatments of the motif and the ensemble played up these changes from sweet and demure to stunningly dramatic, with accents like épée hits. The orchestra got out of the way for solo voices more readily then earlier (including a fine statement between oboe and bass clarinet), but it was the extravagant forte statements—thundering timpani, winds with bells up, full throttle strings—that made for an exhilarating performance, the raucous joy delivered with cathartic zeal.

This story was originally published January 13, 2017 at 2:35 PM with the headline "Violinist Noah Geller steps up to soloist role during Kansas City Symphony performance."