The Colorado Symphony engages several young soloists each season who it bills as “rising stars,” and that moniker certainly fits Joo Young Oh.
The 25-year-old Korean violinist made his debut with the orchestra Friday evening in a scantily filled Boettcher Concert Hall, delivering a spellbinding performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64.
He possesses a lovely, dazzling technique, dashing off runs with lightning speed and superlative dexterity.
But most impressive was the supreme sense of maturity and ease on stage.
As surprising as such command might seem for a performer his age, it makes sense if one considers that he has performed in concerts since at least age 11, when he performed with the San Jose (Calif.) Symphony.
If there was a knock against his playing, it was certain moments where his interpretation seemed over-rehearsed. But in each case, such sections were quickly followed by affecting, sometimes even sublime expressiveness.
If Mozart, Beethoven and even Antonin Dvorak have entire concerts devoted to them with regularity, all-Mendelssohn programs are a little less common. But as this one made clear, the composer’s varied and wonderfully appealing music certainly deserves such treatment.
A suitably evocative version of the Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Op. 21, opened the first half, and the evening’s most surprising musical morsel led off the second – the scherzo from the great Octet in E flat major, Op. 20.
For the London performance of his Symphony No. 1 in 1829, Mendelssohn orchestrated the five-minute movement from the chamber work as a substitute for the usual minuet. The resulting, little-known arrangement is a sheer delight.
Suitably rounding out the evening was the Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 107, “Reformation,” a tightly structured yet emotionally expansive work that stands as one of the form’s high points.
As he did all evening, guest conductor Michael Stern sculpted an engaging interpretation.
