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Broadway, Beatles, Beach Boys medleys ring in '05 Eve

Cleveland Pops Orchestra

Monday, January 03, 2005

Wilma Salisbury

Plain Dealer Music Critic

The atmosphere was festive as the Cleveland Pops Orchestra welcomed the New Year Friday night at Severance Hall. Clusters of balloons decorated the rotunda. Colorful lights illuminated the silver ceiling in the auditorium. Toy horns were distributed in the lobby.

Music director and conductor Carl Topilow set a relaxed mood with his boyish charm, showbiz pizazz and hot clarinet. The 59-member orchestra performed its sunny repertoire with raucous tone, loud dynamics and vibrant rhythms.

While other New Year's Eve celebrations around the world remembered the victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia with a moment of silence, the pops concert was relentlessly upbeat.

The performance opened in dramatic fashion with the lights lowered and the numbers 2005 flashing in lighted balloons above the stage as the orchestra played the majestic introduction to Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (aka the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey").

The program of mostly middlebrow music featured tuneful medleys that paid tribute to Broadway, Hollywood, Louis Armstrong, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, champagne and warm weather. To honor the frothy Viennese New Year's Eve tradition, the ensemble whirled through "Champagne" from Johann Strauss Jr.'s opera, "Die Fledermaus," and members of the large crowd tooted toy horns on cue in Josef Strauss' "Feuerfest Polka."

In past concerts, the orchestra has functioned as accompanist to a parade of guest artists. But on this occasion, the ensemble took the spotlight, and members of the orchestra's percussion and trombone sections came forward for solo turns in Leroy Anderson's "Syncopated Clock" and James Henry Fillmore's "Lassus Trombone."

Fifteen-year-old vocalist Annie Marie Eivertson, a sophomore at Shaker Heights High School and grand prize winner of the orchestra's sixth annual Jean L. Petitt Memorial Music Scholarship, wowed the crowd in a number from "Pippin," which she sang and danced with the poise and personality of a Broadway starlet.

Guest vocalist Joe Bourne of Tucson, Ariz., performed two sets that included songs by Lou Rawls, Neil Diamond and George Gershwin. Although Bourne's smooth style and light voice were better-suited to an intimate nightclub than a formal concert hall, he established an easy audience rapport that led listeners to clap hands and snap fingers in rhythm. His performance culminated in a jazzy Gershwin dialogue with clarinetist Topilow.

The orchestra's versatile leader also played solo clarinet in "Italian Fiesta," a medley of Neapolitan songs performed in the lyrical style of an Italian tenor with extraordinary breath control, and "Immer Kleiner," a musical joke in which the clarinet was dismantled piece by piece during the course of the performance.

The evening ended with social dancing to swing music played by members of the Pops Orchestra in the foyer and light rock performed by Splash in the lobby. Despite the predictability of the program, the annual New Year's Eve gala continues to attract a loyal and enthusiastic following.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

wsalisbury@plaind.com, 216-999-4248