Something special is happening at the Colorado Symphony.
In just his first season as music director, Jeffrey Kahane has already managed to forge an extraordinarily warm, close bond with the orchestra’s existing audiences and attract a small but significant group of new ones.
This connection is amazing both for the speed with which it developed and its intensity. Whether music aficionados or casual listeners, people really seem to identify with him.
For evidence, just look at the numbers: Average attendance at the symphony’s Masterworks concerts grew 8 percent from 1,444 in 2004-05 to 1,559 in 2005-06.
That might not seem like a huge increase, but consider that it took place in only one year. Attendance is declining at some orchestras, including a few of the most widely respected ones in the country.
Perhaps more important than attendance counts was the response of those audiences, especially during the orchestra’s March 17-19 Mozart festival – a kind of Kahane lovefest, where he served as both piano soloist and conductor.
As I noted in a review following the concert, attendees gave him and the symphony standing ovations and unusually boisterous cheers not only at the end of each of the three programs but at the conclusion of many of the individual works.
Clearly, Denver likes Jeffrey Kahane.
There have been many great orchestra-conductor partnerships, such as George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic and, more recently, Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony.
It’s doubtful the Kahane and the Colorado Symphony will ever reach the same level of fame because of the orchestra’s regional nature, but the unusual response this pairing is generating is bound to attract attention in the classical world.
The big question, of course, is what’s behind Kahane’s appeal? Part of it is the incisiveness, intelligence and immediacy of his conducting, especially in big, complex works such as Rachmaninoff’s “The Bells” or John Adams’ “Naive and Sentimental Music.”
It helps that Kahane is also an acclaimed pianist. Seeing him perform at the keyboard as he directs seems to allow listeners to relate to him better than they might if he were only on the podium with a baton.
Figuring out why some personalities are more appealing than others is always difficult, but Kahane has an undeniable charisma that derives in part from his down-to-earth, genuine manner and understated sense of humor.
Such immediate popularity is even more impressive if one considers that he did it without pandering to the audience with his programming. Sure, there were plenty of chestnuts, but they were balanced by a rich array of new and little-heard, older works.
Indeed, the orchestra performed so many contemporary works that it won a recently announced award for adventurous programming from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers – its eighth such honor in nine years, a laudable accomplishment.
Such repertoire was not just window dressing, either. Many of the new offerings were major pieces, including orchestra premieres of two of the most important compositions of the last decade – Adam’s “Naive and Sentimental Music” and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s “LA Variations.”
Kahane’s challenge is sustaining this momentum – to at least maintain his first-season audience gains if not build on them and to continue the excitement that has surrounded many of his concerts so far.
There is no apparent reason why he shouldn’t be able to do just that. The orchestra’s 2006-07 looks every bit as appealing as the season that recently concluded, with Kahane and the orchestra conceiving some particularly intriguing programs for the spotlight series.
The 2005-06 season was a terrific debut for Kahane in virtually every way. There is every reason to believe we will see many more just as thrilling.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-820-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
