Young talent

The concert in the Castro Alves Theater Hall in the Brazilian city Salvador da Bahia on December 2 was sold out, with more than 1500 Zuschauer visitors on hand. Recent success on international stages and in the media have made the "Orquestra Juvenil da Bahia" (Youth Orchestra of Bahia) "the city's pop star," said Ricardo Castro, founder of Neojibá, the Brazilian youth orchestra project.

Neojibá has existed for just four years. And the city of Salvador da Bahia can hardly look back at a long performance history of classical music. A number of the group's musicians aged between 12 and 25 come from disadvantaged backgrounds - their parents never listened to orchestral music, much less stepped inside a theater.

Inspired by the masters

The Polyphonia Ensemble opened the evening with the first movement of the seldom played "Sextet in E Minor" by Gustav Holst. Then two wind quintets formed from members of the youth orchestra presented works by Johann Christian Bach and Franz Danzi.

The high point of the chamber music part of the program came with the appearance of 34-year-old Sao Paulo musician Andre Mehmari. Invited by Deutsche Welle, he performed during the premiere of his septet "Variacoes Villa-Lobos," which draws on themes from the orchestral piece "Bachianas Brasileiras Nr. 7" by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazil's most famous 20th century composer.

Mehmari has enjoyed his own share of success. A gifted pianist, he is one of the most successful composers of his generation in Brazil. His "Variacoes" brings together counterpoint in the style of Bach, a motif by Igor Stravinsky and elements of Beethoven's variation technique. The work's temperament and penetrating sense of drama recall Beethoven's Diabelli Variations.

Mehmari was enthused about his collaboration with the German musicians, who, despite having had little time to prepare, "slipped right into the unpublished piece like a t-shirt."

Hearty applause from the audience confirmed that Mehmari struck the right balance between original composition, classical techniques, popular rhythms, modern effects, lyrical melodies and the spirit of the great Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Shooting star from Caracas

The second star of the evening was the Youth Orchestra of Bahia. The musical project takes off from four decades of work undertaken by Venezuelan musician and politician Jose Antonio Abreu, who founded the first in a series of state youth orchestras in his home country in 1975. More than 30 orchestras now belong to Abreu's network of performance groups, known as "El Sistema." The musicians often come from socially disadvantaged areas and families, relating to Abreu's conviction that music can change the lives of young people for the better.

The conductor of the evening, 28-year-old Manuel Lopez Gomez, hails from Venezuela and began learning violin as part of the El Sistema program at age six. Today he is an assistant and friend of conductor Gustavo Dudamel, the most celebrated musician to have emerged from the Venezuelan music project. Like his mentor, Gomez knows how to draw the full range of sound and expression from the young musicians.

Metaphysical interplay

After the first movement of Franz Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony, the spotlights went out with only a soft light remaining on the first violin onstage and a piano in the orchestra pit. Markus Däunert, a guest violinist from Berlin, and Ricardo Castro, conductor, pianist and founder of the Youth Orchestra of Bahia, performed the final movement from Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time."

The effect took on almost metaphysical proportions: separated spatially and without eye contact, the violinist and pianist generated an extremely intimate sound.

"I've never felt so close to Ricardo," Däunert reflected.

Dancing out the door

After the conclusion of the official program with a selection from Sergei Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet," conductor Lopez Gomez traded his suit in for a Neojibá t-shirt. To the tune of "Tico-tico no fuba," a Brazilian classic, and to the mambo from Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story," the musicians got to stand up and dance, spontaneously forming themselves into little dance troops on stage.

The audience also had trouble staying in their seats, instead taking to their feet, laughing and clapping in time with the music. If there was any doubt going into the evening, one thing seemed clear by the end: the young performers in Salvador da Bahia's youth orchestra have proved that music can indeed bring about change.

Author: Augusto Valente / gsw
Editor: Rick Fulker