Cellist Alisa Weilerstein made her first appearance with the Colorado Symphony when she was 18, a dazzling performance that landed her on The Denver Post’s list of the top 10 classical concerts of 2000-01.
After two subsequent, equally impressive collaborations with the orchestra, Weilerstein was back Thursday evening, a slightly more mature and certainly more widely recognized soloist.
Significantly boosting the 26-year-old cellist’s profile has been her association with Osvaldo Golijov’s “Azul,” a concerto the in-demand composer substantially revised in 2007 with her in mind.
It was the centerpiece of the symphony’s commendably adventurous program Wednesday at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Macky Auditorium — its first trip to the campus since 1996.
The 30-minute work takes listeners on an enchanting journey into a dreamy, even magical realm, evoking a kind of fanciful, idealized version of nature, with percussive sound effects suggesting flapping bird wings and chirping insects.
With an understated yet insistent forward momentum, the four movements flow uninterruptedly into each other, somehow merging into a united, satisfying whole despite their surprising differences in mood and feel.
The opening reverie, with its flowing lines and sense of wonder, balances the jazzy, highly animated third movement, a kind of Argentinian jam session with Weilerstein and her fellow soloists — percussionists Jamey Haddad and Keita Ogawa and hyper-accordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman.
Weilerstein was completely at home in this work, balancing her usual passion and intensity with a free-spiritedness so important to this idiomatic music. Unfortunately, overly loud and not especially refined amplification significantly detracted from her playing.
Providing an ideal bookend to “Azul” was the program’s opener, “Pasíon incesante (Ceaseless Passion).” It is a movement from the emotionally complex “Tangos de una pasíon” by Luis Jorge González, a CU professor emeritus who, like Golijov, is a native of Argentina.
Rounding out the program was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93.
The concert will be repeated at 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday in Boettcher Concert Hall.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
