Contemporary Mexican and classic Mozart soar together for N.J. Symphony | Review

New things are happening at the New Jersey Symphony.
The Garden State orchestra’s held the first of its subscription concerts for the 2024-2025 season this past weekend at NJPAC in Newark. The most exciting part of the program was a recent work by Gabriela Ortiz, a Mexican composer who has exploded here on the East Coast over the last two years. Ortiz has been around a while — teaching at American universities, earning Latin Grammy nominations and writing scores that have been played by major orchestras around the world. But her music feels fresh, youthful, brash and well, “new.”
Ortiz’s 2022 composition, “Kauyumari,” opened the New Jersey Symphony’s show on Sunday. The absolute gem of a work had its world premiere with the Los Angeles Philharmonic two years ago. I first heard it when that orchestra came to Carnegie Hall later that year. That was the night after the New York premiere of her dazzling violin concerto, which wowed the audience thanks to a 21-year-old Spanish virtuoso María Dueñas. Those two concerts instantly made me an Ortiz fan.
Hearing “Kauyumari” performed again on Sunday at Prudential Hall proved an even greater delight. The seven-minute piece opens with percussion shakes and then a twisting, playful horn solo before the two sounds split into mirroring melodies. It felt like like a funhouse mirror of sound, with riffs off these tunes bouncing around as the strings slowly built with intensity in the background.
Then about halfway through “Kauyumari,” the composition shifted into a sort of mambo dance rhythm with big drum hits and eventually a bolero-like trance of building tension. Conductor-in-chief Xian Zhang and the New Jersey Symphony delivered all of this in a visceral, colorful rendition. They captured all of passion that the piece had with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its young maestro, Gustavo Dudamel. But Zhang also made the piece feel relaxed, assured and timeless. In March, the NJS will play another piece by Ortiz, this one conducted by emerging Colombian-American maestra Lina González-Granados. That performance is something to definitely look forward to.
Next on the program was something old, a classic Mozart Piano Concerto that the orchestra hasn’t played in 20 years. They teamed up with a familiar NJS collaborator, pianist Inon Barnatan, to perform Concerto 17 in G major. After Ortiz’s riotous curtain-raiser, the gentle Mozart concerto was quite a contrast. Zhang and the orchestra gave the music a jaunty chamber music bounce, which meshed well with Barnatan’s straight-forward style. His lack of affect and flash was welcome — even if his cadenzas had a sense of plodding to them on Sunday — but I was ultimately won over by the way he clearly listened to Zhang and the orchestra. Barnatan and the Jersey players were in complete concert together which added cheer to the sunny G-major score.
The soloist received a boisterous ovation when the piece was done. When he walked off stage, Zhang motioned to the crowd to keep applauding. This prompted more applause, and Barnatan sat back down at the piano and played an encore: Scarlatti Piano Sonata in G major. Here, his clear, no-nonsense style shined. The florid Baroque music seemed to spin effortlessly from Barnatan’s hands though the Steinway’s strings.
After intermission, Zhang and the orchestra performed Scheherazade, the venerable orchestral chestnut by Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Zhang led the NJ players in this piece (the type of 19th century, romantic work she excels with) only a few seasons back. There are only so many more pieces she will program and perform here — the New Jersey Symphony announced star violinist and conductor Joshua Bell will be taking over as principal guest conductor beginning in 2025–26. This promises much more newness ahead for classical music here in the Garden State.
James C. Taylor can be reached [email protected]. Find NJ.com/entertainment on Facebook.