As critical as newly commissioned works and premieres are to the survival of the classical music species, second and subsequent performances are also deeply important. Too often, the eager fanfare of a premiere is followed by a long life in the dusty archives of obscurity or institutional memory.
Thus, there was a welcome return to stage life when the Santa Barbara Symphony performed Jonathan Leshnoff’s Concerto Grosso at The Granada Theatre last weekend, giving the audience a second encounter with a piece commissioned a decade ago, on the occasion of the symphony's 60th anniversary. On the program, Leshnoff’s affable concerto concoction — showcasing 11 (count ‘em) soloists from the orchestra's gifted ranks — got along nicely with earwormy crowd favorites from Mendelssohn (with superb violinist Philippe Quint as soloist on the Violin Concerto in E minor) and Brahms’s Symphony No. 1.
Bearing the summing-up title Platinum Sounds: The Symphony Turns 70, the concert menu added up to a satisfying light meal of a season closer. (There is one more, non-classical add-on concert, An Evening with Sinatra, at the Granada on June 15).