So that's why they don't call it Pops anymore.  Michael Tilson Thomas has
changed the SF Symphony's off-season series to "Summer in the City," added
some substance, brought in singers making their local debut, and gifted us
with a former member of his New World Orchestra.

While soprano Ying Huang, tenor John Osborn, and baritone Stephen Powell
made remarkable additions to the local vocal scene, it was the debut of
that former MTT student that made the most significant impression.  William
Eddins both conducted and played the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21, and
then danced through a crackerjack of a "Carmina Burana," serving notice
of a coming dual career in concert halls and opera.

Eddins, resident conductor of the Chicago Symphony, is a Great Communicator
on the podium, music palpably pouring through his pores.  Given the superb
resources of the orchestra and Vance George's Symphony Chorus, Eddins
pulled together a razor-sharp, joyfully orgiastic and yet disciplined
performance that galvanized the audience -- a good portion of which
consisted of newcomers to Davies Hall.  They'll be back, and that's
perhaps the most important function of the Pops, regardless of the name.

Huang and Osborn exhibited amazing security in the upper register,
the tenor singing of the roasted swan from the chest, Huang ascending
to (and staying in) the stratosphere in "Dulcissime." Powell has an fine
instrument, but he hardly looked up from the score; the baritone role
in "Carmina Burana" can be sight-read, as Powell proved tonight, but it
shouldn't be.  The singer might have followed the example of Sharon Paul's
SF Girls Chorus: the kids sang the medieval German and sort-of-Latin text
without a score, superbly.  Now there's professionalism for you.

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