Ah, the musical life:  unpredictable, exciting...  occasionally bizarre.
Tonight, for instance, we find ourselves in the California edition of
Napoleon's Tomb (but much larger), noting with interest the Chamber
Orchestra Kremlin, featuring a model for Chanel, Ungaro and Armani as
the cello soloist.  No, I am not making this up, how could I?

The concert, in Oakland's Scottish Rite Center, is produced by Four
Seasons Concerts, successor to the artistically brilliant non-profit
Today's Artists' Concerts that went under when sued successfully for the
misuse of the profits it was not supposed to have in the first place.  Ah,
the musical life!

To add to all the excitement, here's a dispatch from the mighty Columbia
Artist Management, Inc.  concerning the cellist, Nina Kotova:

"Ms.  Kotova's father (a well-known double bassist) died under uncertain
circumstances at the early age of 35.  Following this tragedy, Ms.  Kotova
became determined to explore opportunities in the West."

Nothing further on those circumstances, but the CAMI release goes on to
further one's musical education:  "In 1993, at the suggestion of various
photographers, Nina walked into the Ford Modeling Agency.  She made an
overwhelming impression in the modeling community; two days later, Ms.
Kotova was on a shoot for French Glamour and "Nina" quickly becoming one
of the famous faces seen in major women's magazines."

After a couple of years of that, she returned to the cello and composition,
and here she is, on tour with the Kremlin, on a five-month tour of some 50
concerts, including Oshkosh, WI, Ironwood, MI, Sheridan, WY, and
Romeoville, IL.  A shoot for Glamour was never like this.

Under the prominent "33" signs over the temple's doors enter the mostly
young musicians from Moscow, 18 of them, and the music director, Misha
Rachlevsky.

Further study of documentation reveals that the conductor founded the New
American Chamber Orchestra in Detroit, went on to start the Granada City
Orchestra in Spain, and when in 1991 he was offered the opportunity to
record some "Russian music," he went to Moscow and organized this
orchestra.

So, after this collection of related data, how is the orchestra? Awful.
The problem? Rachlevsky.  He is like a black hole in outer space, sucking
up the light from talented young musicians, disappearing heart, spirit,
inspiritation, even a decent ensemble sound.  Thatcher, AZ, Marshfield,
WI and Rolla, MO deserve better.

The concert opened with Mieczyslaw Vainberg's Chamber Symphony No.  1, a
hoot.  The Polish composer, who died in 1996, lived and worked in Moscow
most of his life.  This work opens with an Allegro that appears a Prokofiev
imitation and ends with a Presto that's definitely an unintended Prokofiev
spoof.  Or, Rossini meets Shostakovich.

The Bach D minor concerto went from mechanical to plodding, visiting
pedestrian and boring in-between.  Berkeley pianist Jeanne Stark-Iochmans
was the soloist, doing fine except for the third-movement cadenza which
contained sounds absolutely alien to the 18th century.  I asked her about
it in the intermission, and got this reply (verbatim):  "You have to do
something during the fermata." Something Californian, I asked.  No, the
pianist said, "it's something I just heard the other day." On an evening
like this, that will have to do.

Before the Tchaikovsky "Souvenirs of Florence," the climax of the concert
arrived with "Nina" playing the Haydn Cello Concerto No.  1.  She is not
bad, but there was very little music coming out of the performance.  Do you
remember Whoopi Goldberg's question at the Academy Awards about models? Why
do they always look PO'd? "Nina" both looks and plays like that.  A pity.
A very good-looking young woman, with an adequate technique (and a 1696
Guarneri!), and it's a performance from a graduate recital, without the
excitement.

Some suggestions:  1.  Without a conductor, Chamber Orchestra Kremlin
would sound a lot better, 2.  Playing a 50-concert tour is not a good idea,
3.  Less glamour and more practice may yet make a pretty good cellist from
Kotova, 4.  Don't ever play "something you just heard" in a Bach cadenza,
5.  Four Seasons should go back to the programming of its predecessor, and
present new artists on the order of a yet-unknown Collard, Cziffra,
Poodles, Fischer, etc.

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