Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra performed the first concert of its 2024-25 season last weekend in what might have been the last time we see Lauren Roth on a Tucson stage.
The longtime Tucson Symphony Orchestra concertmaster joined her University of Arizona colleagues Theodore Buchholz on cello and pianist Fanya Lin as soloists for Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, the centerpiece of SASO’s concert on Sunday, Oct. 13, at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church.
If Sunday’s performance was her final farewell, it was a great one.
She, Buchholz and Lin performed as if no one was watching, with the intimacy of longtime colleagues who finish one another’s musical thoughts. Roth, ever the concertmaster, would nod at Buchholz, and he would dig deep into Beethoven’s beautiful music, opening the door for Roth to join in with her singular voice resonating against the backdrop of the orchestra, under the baton of Music Director Linus Lerner.
Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra opened its 2024-25 season last weekend with Beethoven’s Triple Concerto featuring, from left, cellist Theodore Buchholz, violinist Lauren Roth and pianist Fanya Lin.
She nodded toward Lin, who picked up the melody, her fingers scaling the grand’s keyboard with equal measure of grace and frenetic energy.
At one point, Lin played a phrase and Roth playfully mimicked her. She played more notes and Roth again mimicked her.
It wasn’t ad-libbed; Beethoven composed the Triple as three concertos in one, almost daring the soloists to one-up one another. But it sure felt organic.
That’s one of the things we will miss most from Roth, who has taken a one-year sabbatical from the TSO after landing the assistant concertmaster role with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Georgia. Whether it’s watching her with her colleagues or seeing her in the first chair with the TSO on the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall stage, Roth exudes a passion that goes beyond the score in front of her.
Roth on Oct. 5 rejoined the TSO to solo on Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.
Last weekend's concert with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra might have been the last time we see TSO concertmaster Lauren Roth, center, perform in Tucson. She was joined by her UA colleagues Theodore Buchholz, left, and Fanya Lin.
Sunday’s concert opened with Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question,” a somewhat experimental work that asks the big question: Why are we here?
Principal trumpet player Michael Kiefer, playing from the back of St. Andrew’s Southwest Sanctuary, posed the question while a quartet of flutes – principal Nancy Anderson, Lucy Huestis, Mike Padilla and Chris Smith – attempted to answer. Each time Kiefer asked, the quartet’s answers grew louder and faster, and from the audience, we could sense their frustration at not having the answer he was seeking.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” anchored the program and earned the afternoon’s biggest applause.
Lerner led the orchestra in a dynamic and colorful performance, bringing to life all of the wonderful emotions and layers of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ornate orchestration.
“Scheherazade” is based on the Arabian tales of the “One Thousand and One Nights,” where a Sultan, distrusting of women, takes a new bride every night then kills them in the morning. Until he weds Scheherazade, who nightly tells him a new story and never finishes it until the next day, thus sparing her fate.
Scheherazade was voiced by SASO’s pretty terrific Concertmaster Erika Roush and harpist Melissa Varga. Roush brought out the gentle calm of her character as a woman in control of her destiny.
The piece has at least a half dozen solo turns throughout the orchestra — cellist Stephen Beecher, oboist Sherry Jameson, Margot Schultz on horn, Kiefer on trumpet, flutist Anderson, trombonist Graeme Shaw and bassoonist John Spence. Whenever there was a solo voice in the orchestra, we found ourselves searching to find the source.
SASO continues its “Musical Journeys” season with “Italy and Germany” featuring Rossini’s “William Tell” Overture and Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor with soloist Janet Sung. For tickets and details, visit sasomusic.org.
