The San Diego Symphony has played in some unusual venues over the past two years: churches, an art gallery, school auditoriums. But the most unlikely place I heard them perform was at the Live & Up-Close Theater at the Sycuan Casino Resort.
The Live & Up-Close Theater is tucked inside Sycuan Casino, past rows of slot machines, card tables and dice games. It’s hard to recall sitting in more comfortable seats for a symphony concert, and a surprising amount of people convened there at 12:30 p.m. on a Wednesday for this free “Music Connects” concert.
Symphonies by Prokofiev and Haydn were the familiar offerings on the program, but I had come to hear “Chokfi’” by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, a Chickasaw composer.
Chokfi’ is a rabbit trickster character in Chickasaw legend. Tate describes his piece as a “Sarcasm for String Orchestra and Percussion,” and its several sections (played continuously) illustrate the “complicated and diabolical personality of this rabbit person.”
It opens with stark percussion playing a pulse in unpredictably shifting meters. Double basses, cellos and violas jump in, at first playing open strings but soon pulsing along in gruff harmonies. Then the violins outline a melody that Tate describes as a “popular tribal church hymn.”
The overall structure of the work is a type of free variations, with the hymn repeatedly popping up in different textures. Tate wrote “Chokfi’” for a youth orchestra; the slippery rhythms and some of the more dissonant harmonies are surprising for such a work. “Chokfi’” progresses through waves of crescendos, pizzicato patterns, crunchy repeated notes and arrhythmic textural washes, ending with a recapitulation of the opening section and one final sounding of the hymn.
It was an emotionally direct work whose sincerity never felt like pandering. In some ways, it reminded me of Lou Harrison’s appealing and eclectic music, although Tate’s melodies were not as sumptuousness as Harrison’s.
The concert opened with several bird songs (the origin stories of the Kumeyaay, so-called because a bird first imparted them to early tribal ). These songs predate Haydn by centuries. They were performed by Jamie LaBrake and Bobo Elliott, who accompanied themselves on gourd rattles in rhythms that at times were rather tricky. Three Kumeyaay women danced along to the songs, their backs to the audience, occasionally moving in half-circles, always returning to face the singers.
Pairing Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 in D Major, “Classical” with Haydn’s “London” Symphony No. 104 in D Major was obvious and successful programming — two composers 120 years apart writing symphonies in the same keys and with the same lighthearted sentiments. Prokofiev himself identified a “Mozartian classicism” in his work.
I’ve been to at least five of the San Diego Symphony’s “Music Connects” concerts, all of them free. I’ve never once heard the musicians phone in their performances. There were some rough edges in Wednesday’s concert; I’m guessing those were due more to insufficient rehearsal time.
Conductor John Lidfors seemed to be all business on the podium. He was most convincing in Tate’s compelling composition. I would have liked to have heard more giddiness in Prokofiev, more playful joy in Haydn. The winds, brass and percussion all sounded great, but the strings slightly suffered from the dryness of the theater, which seems designed for amplified musicians.
I do hope “Music Connects” will continue after the symphony moves back into Copley Symphony Hall. It’s a terrific community service, and they’ve played some wonderful repertory like “Chokfi’” that doesn’t wind up on the Masterworks series.
Hertzog is a freelance writer.
