by Emily Parkhurst

Portland, ME, 11 July 2010. While the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival tends to stay in the mid-coast area of Maine, Portland classical music fans were lucky this year when the Festival decided to expand with its “Festival Extra” series.

The Sunday afternoon concert, hosted at the fabulous, intimate venue, One Longfellow Square, was a line-up of festival virtuosi, instructors and students - a wonderful mix of youthful exuberance and amazing talent. At $15 per ticket, it was a good deal as well.

Violinist David Coucheron, who was recently named concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony, opened the concert with all four movements of J.S. Bach’s Sonata in G minor for solo violin, BWV 1001, which he played flawlessly from memory. It was a playful rendition, but with the serious edge of a professional performer who knows how to play Bach. Coucheron, with his dimpled chin and handsome demeanor, reminded me of the impish little boy on the playground who tugs at little girls’ pigtails – but then picks up the violin and blows everyone away.

He was followed by what could only be described as his polar opposite. The moment Eric Silberger stepped onto the stage with his violin, he began to play three of Niccolo Paganini’s Caprices, beginning with No. 1 in E minor. To say his technique was awe-inspiring does not do it justice. Caprice No. 1, an Andante, was almost entirely double-stops, which Silberger played with wide-open eyes and a satisfied grin. He showed off the range of the violin and proved that a technical piece can also be musical. His left-handed pizzicatos were so incredibly fast the audience started laughing in disbelief. He played Caprices No. 11 in C Major, and No. 24 in A minor, all the while knocking down the third wall between performer and audience, leaving nothing of his ecumenical personality to doubt. By the end of the performance, I felt like I’d known him for years, and I wanted to buy him a drink.

Silberger then joined a quintet to perform the ubiquitous favorite “Eine Kleine Nachtmusic” by W.A. Mozart. Anyone who has been to a wedding this summer will have already heard this, but this was not trite wedding background music. It was as if the group set out to remind us that this is a beautiful piece of music when played with the passion it deserves.

While Coucheron was on the program as first violin, he was replaced on stage by Laura Lutzke, a student attending the Bowdoin Festival. This seemed at first a charitable move to allow the young people a moment on the stage, but as soon as the quintet began it was clear Lutzke belonged in that chair. She led the quintet with poise and character beyond her years.

The performance breathed new life into a piece we’ve all heard far too many times. It was refreshing in a way I did not expect, and I forgave all intonation issues immediately as a result. Silberger’s facial expressions, the cellist’s cool smile, and everyone’s obvious enjoyment of the music made it the gem of the night.

After intermission, cellist and Bowdoin Festival student Michael Midlarsky and bassist and Bowdoin Festival faculty Kurt Muroki took the stage for Gioachino Rossini’s Duo for Cello and Bass. The piece was a nice juxtaposition from the high violin work earlier in the evening. It rumbled along with virtuosic moments and gurgling melodies, a fun piece I’d not heard live before. It seemed the bass had sloughed its weight and reinvented itself as a tiny, blond soprano, the cello, her playful boyfriend.

The evening ended with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Wind Octet in E-flat Major, Op. 103. The Octet is early Beethoven, very classical, very Haydn. So it seemed right that the performers were also students, albeit 200 years later. The first oboe, Angela Limoncelli, did well as the group’s leader. The other musicians watched her and she watched them right back, making possible the lovely give and take so necessary in large chamber ensembles. The clarinets were well matched, with a beautiful blended tone. While the horns missed a few exposed notes, their color and dynamics did well matching the woodwinds. First bassoon Briana Lehman has a lovely tone, but seemed shy and was often out-played by the second bassoonist. Play out, girl, you sound great.