NCCO and the Marcus Roberts Trio

After the dismal celebration of the United States 250th anniversary in Washington, D.C. earlier this year, most people have forgotten the occasion entirely, but the New Century Chamber Orchestra began their new musical season with an all-American tribute last week in its honor. The program started with a piece of juvenalia by George Gerswin, the 1920 Lullaby for string quartet arranged for a string orchestra by Jeff Manookian in 2011. Music Director Daniel Hope led the short, sweet, rather dull piece fluidly.

This was followed by the more substantial Entr'acte by Caroline Shaw, written in 2011 for the Brentano String Quartet and expanded into a string orchestra version in 2014. Even though her music seems to pop up everywhere these days, this was the first piece of Shaw's that I have heard, and it was a strange delight, with elements of minimalism, ghost noises created by "light finger pressure," and lots of plucking of the strings. The finale is a soft cello solo, played beautifully by Isaac Melamed at Saturday's performance in Herbst Theatre.

The first half of the program finished with At the Purchaser's Option, a mordant 2017 song about slavery by Rhiannon Giddens. The string orchestra arrangement was stirring, but the piece really called for a vocalist. A member of the orchestra read the lyrics onstage ahead of the performance but much of the song's power was lost with the disassociation of words and music. (Click here for a video of Rhiannon Giddens singing the song herself.)

After intermission, musical guests Marcus Roberts on piano, Reginald Veal on bass, and Herlin Riley on drums joined the string orchestra for a jazz/classical mash-up, starting with the trio alone playing Duke Ellington's I Let A Song Go Out of My Heart. The orchestra then joined them for Come Sunday and It Don't Mean a Thing in arrangements by Roberts. The blind pianist was spectacular, and Riley on drums was doing amazing, off-beat rhythms throughout, but the mixture of semi-improvised jazz and note-perfect string orchestra was uneasy and tended to work best when one element went silent and allowed the jazz players to groove or the string players to swoon away on their own.

The concert ended with Gershwin's Song Suite for Violin, Jazz Trio, and Strings, arranged by Paul Bateman. The five songs are Fascinating Rhythm, Summertime, 'S Wonderful, The Man I Love, and I Got Rhythm, which Daniel Hope and the Marcus Roberts Trio has recorded with the Zürcher Kammerorchester (click here). Hope was obviously having a blast playing jazz violin and the rest of the orchestra was grinning from ear to ear backing up the fabulous trio and soloist. The pleasure was infectious.