Loudspeakers complicate effort to span sonic divide
[After saying that the other parts of the program was less than perfect it
went on to say this about Danny]
Danny Elfman's Serenada Schizophrana, on the other hand, is music that
works. With six movements, rolling piano solos (by Christopher Oldfather) and
the charming hoots and chirps of eight female voices (the ACO Singers under
Judith Clurman), Mr. Elfman gave us music comfortable in its own world and highly
professional in its execution. Hollywood, you say. Better good Hollywood music
than second-rate Brahms. The composer of this piece has an ear for symphonic
colors and how to balance them.
The American Composers Orchestra and its conductor Steven Sloane seemed to
sense the quality. Serenada Schizophrana was more smoothly and tightly
played than anything else on the program. It was a big and unusual kind of audience
for a symphony event: the young and the near young were everywhere one looked;
many were presumably there to hear Mr. Summers, the historic one-time rocker-guitarist
with the Police.