A funny thing happened at The Granada Theatre last week, when the renowned Academy of St Martin in the Fields orchestra closed out the CAMA “International Series” season. An impressive and full-blown drum kit was perched on center stage. Needless to say, this might be comprehensible at a jazz-oriented show, but is anything but standard practice in orchestral culture.
Soon enough, the audience realized that the “what's wrong with this picture?” scenario was something very right. Said drum set was expertly played by one Douglas Marriner, a soloist in the world premiere of the fascinating composer-arranger Vince Mendoza's Flight of Moving Days. Commissioned by the orchestra to honor the centennial of the late, great founder-leader Sir Neville Marriner, Mendoza’s piece featured leader Joshua Bell and Marriner (grandson of Sir Neville) in a felicitous marriage of classical and jazz manners.
It is exceedingly rare to have an actual world premiere by a prominent world-renowned orchestra in our town, and strangely, CAMA didn’t stir up proper promotion or ado about the coup. Last May at the CAMA finale concert, we heard a pair of intriguing premieres — from Gabriella Smith and Ellen Reid — presented as a later part of the L.A. Phil’s weekend. Last week, as impressive as the “straighter” portion of the program was, bolstered by the trusty standard stuff of Brahmss’ Violin Concerto in D and Schumann’s Second Symphony, it was Mendoza’s music that owned this night and made it most memorable.