Amici's winning ways

Press, 29 July 1980, Page 11

Amici's winning ways

By Philip Norman Quietly and unobtrusively the Amici Chamber Orchestra is winning its way into the heart of orchestral activity in Christchurch. Basicalan orchestral co-operative, the score or so of musicians who make up the orchestra are there with one aim: to play music, and play they do, with equanimity, undistracted by invidious non-mu-sical externalities.

i .As a training ground for voung instrumentalists in both ensemble playing and general musicianship, organisations like the Amici could well prove to be the orchestral panacea for the future. Sunday’s concert in the Great Hall of the Arts Centre was a mixed, wellbalanced programme of music by Handel (overture to “Alcina”), Albinoni (Oboe Concerto opus 7 in D), Vivaldi (Concerto Grosso Op. 3 No. 11), Mozart (Symphony No. 29 in A), and Arnold (Sinfonietta). The guest conductor was the unflappable expatriate Englishman, John Pattinson, whose economical gestures and resolute cueing coaxed the orchestra to peaks of precision and fi116556. The highlight of the concert was the Albinoni Oboe Concerto. The soloist, Ross McKeich, demonstrated a masterv of the florid passages and a sensitivity in the quieter movements that makes one wonder why more is not heard of him as a soloist. Unfortunately, he chose to stand with his back

to three-quarters of the audience, causing an imbalance of sound between orchestra and soloist. The Arnold work, said to be a first performance in Christchurch, exuded a delightful but familiar air of ■British * precocity. Played [with vigour and confidence, ■it was a fitting climax to the concert. The Handel opening the programme was perhaps, the weakest item, particclarly in the opening slow introduction where the thematic trills were not delivered with the requisite rythmic assertiveness. Soloists in the Vivaldi were the violinists, Jennifer [Moreau and Alistair Sands, and the cellist, Jerome de Bouter. Their competent performance suffered only through a blurring of clarity caused by the acoustics of the Great Hall. The Mozart Symphony is memorable for its horn writing, particularly in the final movement. Andrew McKeich and Heather Dunford did well to consist e n 11 y pitch the demandingly high lines..